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SHADOWS BEFORE 


OR 


A CENTURY ONWARD 


BY y 

FAYETTE STRATTON GILES 



the HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
19 Astor Place 





*0 


f 


Copyright, i&^^by Fayette Stratton Giles 
A// rights reserved 


PREFACE. 


IN writing Shadows Before^ I have endeav- 
ored to show some of the lines along which 
the progress of the century will most probably 
be made, I have nsed illustrations which to me 
seein quite practical, in view of the wonderful 
changes in action, thought, ajid life, which have 
taken place during the past Imndred years. A 
reverent student of Herbert Spencer, Darwin, 
and Huxley, I have endeavored to give point to 
some of their conclusive philosophy, by putting 
certain of their ideas into the mouths of ^ 
characters, a7id I hereby wish to express my 
appreciation and acknowledgment of the same^ 
I also wish to mention gratefully Professor 
A. E. Dolbear s article on '' The Metamorphosis 
of Education,'' in the Popular Science Monthly, 
from which I have gathered ideas. 

F. S. G. Z 

New York, iSgg. 





CONTENTS. 


Chapter I. 

Description of New York and of the United States 
in 1993. — Arrival of Taira Minamoto from 
Japan. — The United Republics of the Civil- 
* ized World. ....... 9 


Chapter II. 

Education Discussed by Professor Busbey and 

Taira. ......... 20 


Chapter III. 

An International Dinner. — A Mysterious Event. . 35 

Chapter IV. 


A Strange Arrival. 


43 


vi 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter V. 

A Catholic Home Described. — Taira’s Visit to the 
Primary and Secondary Schools. — Curriculums. 

— Universities 51 

Chapter VI. 

A Vision of Lost Youth. — Railways of 1993. . 70 

Chapter *VII. 

Air-ships, and Aerial Electric Boats. — Taira Asks 
Regarding the Use of Wines, the Silver Ques- 
tion, etc. — Grace Awakes. . . . • ^5 

Chapter VIII. 

Servants. — Farming Interests in the Twentieth Cen- 
tury. — Public Roads. — How Physicians are 
Employed. — Grace and Isis Take a Memorable 
Walk. . . . . . . -99 

Chapter IX. 

Improvements in Sewers. — Commercial Houses. — 
Charities. — Governments: U. S., State, and 
Municipal. — Primaries. — J ustice. — The Lover’s 
Star. . . . . . . . . .122 


CONTENTS. 


vii 


Chapter X. 

The Flying Queen Prepares for Departure. . 153 

Chapter XL 

Journey of the Flying Queen. — Evolution of 

Women to Their Status in 1993. . . 167 

Chapter XII. 

Electra’s Suspicion. — Evolution of Marital Rela- 
tions. — Limit of State Authority in Marriage. 

— Contract Marriage. — The State’s Responsi- 
bility Towards Its Minors, Children. — State In- 
surance for Children. ...... 189 

Chapter XIII. 

International Currency and Citations of Value. — 

The Professor’s Matrimonial Plans. — Philan- 
thropy. 218 


Chapter XIV. 


A Mystery Solved. 


. 232 


CONTENTS, 


viii 


Chapter XV. 

Strikes. — Endowed Press. — Arbitration. — Capital 
and Labor Organizations. — Voluntary Co- 
operation. — State Socialism. — Nationalism. 

— Bellamy’s Theories Discussed.— Trusts and 
Corporations. — Improved Condition of the 
Working Classes. — Canons of the Colorado 
Visited by the Party. — Various Marriage 
Proposals 249 


Chapter XVI. 

The Flying Queen Rests at Chicago, the Busiest 
and Richest City in the World in 1993.— Happy 
Termination of Romance. ..... 275 


SHADOWS BEFORE; 

OR, 

A CENTURY ONWARD. 


CHAPTER I. 

The scene upon which this story opens is 
New York city; the year, 1993. 

It is a beautiful clay in June. The airship 
yEolus, out for a morning sail, floats dreamily 
through the fleecy clouds, in an atmosphere 
sweet with the breath of June flowers, and 
refreshed by breezes from the sea. 

From its deck the family of Professor Busbey 
looks down upon the great city of New York 
with its ten millions human beings ; while three 
hundred millions of contented people, under 
conditions of equality and fraternity, attest 
superlative national greatness. 

Old America, with its annexation of Cuba, 
Canada, and British America, is indeed an en- 


lO 


SHADOWS BEFORE : OR. 


chanted land — of vast cities, forests and fields, 
prairies and snow-capped mountains ; a land in 
which the fragrance of the rose is somewhere 
ever present, within whose borders are found 
the fruits of every zone, the flowers of all climes, 
and grain and herds with which to fill the stores 
of earth and feed a whole hungry world. Its 
majestic rivers, on the selfsame banks of which 
grow arctic pine and tropic palm, sweep through 
thousands of miles of fertile plains, through 
mountain gorges seamed darkly with lead and 
iron and coal, past rocks richly veined with 
silver and gleaming copper ; through mines of 
yellow gold and sparkling, precious stones, and 
mines of'all that is useful in the arts. Its nights i 
are brilliant with the glow of monster furnace 
mouths, and its days display busy hives of fruit- i 
ful, contented labor. A rich land — better than 
the Eden of old. Throughout all its breadth 
reign the fair goddesses of liberty and justice. 
Freely to all the world do they give the right 
of exchange and of contract. Free is every 
man to do that which he will, if he infringe not 
upon the equal freedom of others ; limited is 
his liberty only by the like liberty of all. Free 
is its sunlight, air, and^.s*//^. Within its borders 
Justice ranks the humblest with the highest. 
Equally sacred in her temples are the wages of 


A CENTURY ONWARD. ii 

labor and the millions of accumulation. Sacred 
are the rights of the few from the oppressions 
of the many, and honor to honor is paid. Lib- 
erty and justice reign supreme, but with hands 
of steel do they pitilessly crush all who abuse 
their precious gifts. 

It is, indeed, a wonderful city that lies beneath 
the slowly moving air-ship yEolus. 

The whole of Manhattan Island shows the 
mighty, throbbing pulses of the most extensive 
commercial life that the world has ever seen, 
while palatial residences cover the wide adjoin- 
ing country. On the south they stretch far 
away for many miles beyond the horizon. To 
the east the ocean reaches out and onward until 
its waters wash the shores of Europe, and they 
proudly bear great commercial fleets, flying 
America’s flags, sailing from American ports, 
and carrying to and fro without tax or hindrance, 
unfettered as the waters that bear them, the 
riches of nations, to the abodes of . all men. On 
the north the majestic Hudson flows on its 
course to the sea ; far away for many leagues 
glimpses are caught of beautiful villas and 
marble palaces along its banks, and extending 
far back they cover the hills for miles in every 
direction. They are half hidden and garlanded 
by blossoming shrubs, noble trees, and flower- 


12 


SHABOIVS BEFORE ; OR, 


terraced roofs, which shut out the busy tumult 
of the world, while the aroma of perfumed foun- 
tains and the faint son^s of birds are borne aloft 
on the breezes to the deck of the yEolus. 

Beautiful New York ! Powerful, influencing' 
the destinies of nations, and yet so small ! Onh^ 
a speck, a flower on the surface of the earth ! 
13ut a flower whose roots encircle the globe, 
whose fragrance fills the world, and to the glor)' 
and magnificence of which all people pay trib- 
ute. 

The /Eolus gently descends and alights at a 
stately mansion, the residence of Professor 
lEisbey, situated in the midst of great velvet 
grass-plats and oaks, maples, and elms. Broad 
casements open out upon the old-fashioned 
roses and ivy that climb about them. 

On this day, at about three o’clock in the 
afternoon. Professor Busbey’s famih', dressed 
as for an important occasion, are assembled in 
the drawing-room of his luxurious residence. 
All are expecting the arrival of a Japanese 
gentleman, Taira Minamoto, who is to become 
the professor’s guest, and who has been sent by 
his government to make a report upon the 
progress of the American nation during the 
past century. 

The name of Professor Busbey is known 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


13 


throughout the world, and his acquirements fit 
him for the duties of host to the stranger, but 
what makes him the most suitable person to be 
Taira Minamoto’s guide, cicerone, and friend, is 
the fact that he has lived upon this earth one 
hundred and thirty years, and was the first 
President of the United Republics of the Civil- 
ized World. 

With his own eyes he has seen those changes 
of which most men only have traditions, and 
the veneration and esteem in which he is held 
in Japan, in consequence, are very high. 

They have always venerated age in Japan, as 
well as in China ; “ You are much older than I,” 
is a compliment one utters to another, whereas 
in Europe it is considered almost an offense, 
and men and women, wise on other points, are 
weak on this. 

However, the twentieth century has made an 
advance in this respect. People live better and 
keep their youth longer, and it is not so great a 
marvel to attain the age of one hundred and 
thirty years, still in the possession of physical 
power and mental vigor, as it would have been 
in the nineteenth century. 

The professor, in a dignified costume, in 
which a robe and cap of black velvet play a 
prominent part, arises as the servant announces 


14 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

his guest. His great-great-grandson, lolas, and 
his great-great-granddaughter, Isis, place them- 
selves beside him, yet a little in the rear. Their 
eyes are fixed upon the portiere, which the 
servant draws back, and, in an instant more, 
Taira Minamoto stands before them. 

He is exactly what a Japanese gentleman of 
1893 was, outwardly, and he is dressed in the 
most elegant English costume of the Jay. It 
is a hundred years since the Japanese govern- 
ment decided to abandon their picturesque and 
beautiful costume, because it. cast upon them 
the imputation of being barbarians. 

In 1892 they adopted our fashions, and since 
then have followed them carefully. Therefore, 
in outward seeming, Taira Minamoto only 
differs from a gentleman of our land in certain 
hereditary points of feature and complexion, 
and in being even more polite than it is possible 
for one of any other nationality to be. 

There is in his manner a gentle certainty that 
he is doing right that is truly Japanese. 

It is necessary to be certain of one’s self in 
Japan, for a gentleman of that country would 
commit suicide in remorse for a mistake over 
which an Englishman of position would only 
blush a little. 

He pauses in the centre of the room and bows 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


15 

as elegantly as a French ambassador could do, 
and utters his little speech in good English, but 
with a curious cadence and an unusual choice of 
words. 

“ Wisest and oldest of men,” he says, “I re- 
joice to be allowed to bow before you. The 
hope of being permitted to look upon your face 
has been as a torch to lead me onward, and in 
becoming your pupil I receive the crowning 
honor of my days.” 

Then he advances, hat in hand, and bows. 

“You are very welcome,” says the professor, 
“ I hope greatly to enjoy your visit and the so- 
ciety of so intelligent a pupil.” 

“ Let me introduce my family, Mr. Taira,” — 
this is the name Taira Minamoto had placed 
upon the card the professor holds in his hand — 
“ My granddaughter’s daughter, Isis, and her 
brother lolas. He is the staff of my declining 
years, she the flower that brightens them. I am 
glad that they are home from college, for they 
are young and will make your visit pleasanter.” 

Between a fear of expressing a doubt of this 
fact and a fear of admitting that the professor’s 
company is not sufficient, Taira knows not what 
to say. He puts his fingers together and in- 
cludes every one present in a smile and a bow. 

“You have arrived in time to assist my 


1 6 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

children in celebrating my birthday,” says the 
professor. “ I have invited my distinguished 
friends from all parts of the Confederated Re- 
publics to dine with me, and I shall be proud to 
see you among them.” 

Here it may be well to state to the reader 
that all civilized nations now have republican 
forms of government. They are confederated, 
and form “The United Republics of the Civil- 
ized World.” The constitution, governmental 
composition and organization, and the functions 
and powers of this confederation of countries, 
in relation to the individual countries composing 
it, are similar to those of the government of the 
United States in relation to its individual 
states. This confederation has done away with 
probable wars, and it has abolished consequent 
standing armies, except the limited confederate 
army, needed for insuring order under ordinary 
conditions. The militia is relied upon for pro- 
tection from extraordinary dangers. 

The wonderful improvement in railways, 
ocean navigation, and electric communications, 
the miraculous degree of the elimination of 
time, space, and cost, have made every part of 
this vast confederation, every corner of the 
civilized globe, as quickly, easily, ^nd as cheaply 
accessible, as were the different states of the 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


17 


United States to their general government one 
hundred years ago. 

These great advances in the physical sciences, 
together with the correspondingly great ad- 
vances in the social sciences, have proportion- 
ately increased the world’s community of inter- 
ests, while its happiness has strengthened its 
bonds of union. 

“ Yes,” resumes the professor, '' to-day I com- 
plete my one hundred and thirtieth year. It is 
unusual for man to live so long.” 

'' The fates have spared him whom the world 
most needed,” says Taira. 

'' At all events,” says the professor, I am not 
weary of the world. A hundred years ago, 
when I was thirty, I wished devotedly that I had 
done with its trials, but age is the time of peace. 
In youth we are eager in the race; ambition 
goads us. In age we no longer yield to that 
passion which men call love.” 

Mr. Taira bows again. They are all seated, 
and some conversation ensues in which all take 
part. The usual questions that are asked a 
stranger are put, and the usual questions that a 
stranger asks are uttered. There is time for 
very little before they part to dress for this great 
birthday dinner. 

However, Isis and lolas feel sure that they 


i8 SlfJDOWS BEFORE j OR, 

will like Taira Minamoto very much. There is 
evidently real good feeling at the bottom of his 
reserved and formal politeness, while the kindly 
look in his black eyes, when fixed on those of 
another, is winning. As for him, he is full of 
admiration for his host and these beautiful 
young people. 

He is dressed, and asking himself what eti- 
quette demands of him in regard to making his 
appearance, when there is a timid little tap at 
the door. 

He opens it. A dark-skinned, black-eyed 
young girl stands there with a beautiful crimson 
flower in a tiny china cup. 

“ Miss Isis sends you this to put in your 
coat,” she says, “and Mr. lolas will come for 
you soon.” 

“ My thanks to the most beautiful and amiable 
Miss Isis,” Taira says, “and to you also for 
bringing me the flower. You are not of this 
country, little one. I see that you are from the 
East.” 

“ My father is a Hindoo,” replies the girl, 
with a soft smile. 

“ And what is your name ? ” asks Taira. He 
speaks now in Hindoostanee, which he thor- 
oughly understands, for Taira is a brilliant lin- 
guist. The girl’s eyes sparkle. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


19 


“ My name is Kala,” she answers. “ I am the 
handmaiden of the lady they call Isis. I love 
her. She is very sweet and good.” 

“You are also sweet and good, little Kala, I 
am sure,” says Taira. “ Thank you for bring- 
ing the flower to me.” 

Then Kala courtesies aud departs, and as 
Taira puts the flower in his buttonhole, he says 
to himself — 

“ The lady is beautiful, but the handmaiden 
is sweet as a pomegranate blossom.” 

Later lolas appears and escorts Taira to the 
drawing-room. There he is introduced to many 
distinguished prople who make a great deal of 
him, so that he becomes, next to the professor, 
the lion of the occasion. 


20 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


CHAPTER II. 

“ Noble and respected father,” says Taira, 
finding himself seated near the professor in a 
quiet corner, where only the faint hum of the 
general conversation can be heard, “ I see about 
me, as it were, a new world, which has released 
men from the old, dull, hopeless misery which 
had bound them for thousands of years. Tell 
me what were the great and most complicated 
agencies whereby this new world has been 
created.” 

“ The old misery,” says the professor, “was 
but the penalty of oppression and of errors and 
prejudices, causing men to live out of harmony 
with the universal laws of right and justice, 
which should govern all existence. Not by 
subtle nor complicated agencies have these 
changes been wrought, but by conforming to 
the simple, natural laws essential to happiness, 
which govern all life and all matter, animate 
and inanimate, has this world been evolved 
from the old.” 

“ How, father, are we to know these laws?” 
says Taira. ^ 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


2 t 

By the light of science, and the test of 
scientific proof,” answers Professor Busbey. 
'' Science teaches us that, mentally and physi- 
cally, we are but evolved beings, and that we 
are, mentally and physically, the result of selec- 
tion, hereditary influence, and environment. It 
teaches us that the limits of the possibilities of 
the individual are controlled by his environ- 
ment, and conditioned by his capacity. The 
more powerful hereditary combinations evolve, 
from time to time, greater minds, more power- 
ful in will and expedient, which throw off the 
chains of error and prejudice, and to a larger 
extent dominate environment and discover 
the physical and moral laws that control us 
and all matter, search out the right, and lead 
their fellow men to a higher plane of happiness. 
Such men are our great scientists and philoso- 
phers.” 

''Yes,” says Taira, encouragingly. 

" The right kind of education must include a 
knowledge of the fixed, unchangeable laws of 
our environment,” continues the professor ; 
“a knowledge of the laws that govern the uni- 
verse and ourselves, in order that we nnay keep 
in harmony with them. The degree of happi- 
ness to which we may attain depends upon the 
degree of harmony with the great natural laws 


21 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


of the universe and of all existence to which we 
have arrived.” 

“ I recognize that fact,” says Taira. 

“Therefore,” says the professor, “education 
should fit a man for his environment. It should 
unveil to him the world in which he must live 
and show him the inexorable chain of laws which 
govern and fix his relations to it. It should 
show him the continuous, interdependent, and 
unfailing workings of the laws of nature, and 
their causes and effects, and that he himself is 
but a result of them and that he is subject to 
them. These will show him the invariable con- 
ditions of penalties and rewards which nature 
imposes and gives, and which concern him as 
well as all other life. It should better enable 
him to discover what achievements, in the 
nature of things, are reasonably possible and 
what are impossible, and, therefore, what ideals 
may be consistently cherished.” 

Taira assents by frequent nods. 

“ Neither theology, history, literature, nor 
art, nor the dead languages, nor Christian evi- 
dence can avail much toward this. Only science 
can do it-^not science as formerly taught, if at 
all, in most of the old colleges as a mass of facts, 
more or less detached, calculated to render 
vague the idea of necessary relations, failing 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


23 


from intent to show the necessary continuity of 
all things ; but science, as a whole, yet with dif- 
ferent divisions, taught as a mass of interdepen- 
dent relations, as an unbroken chain of se- 
quences, of which no link can be omitted, nor 
weakened, showing the unfailing continuity, the 
complexity, and the connection of all phe- 
nomena. 

The complex divisions of science, like biol- 
ogy and geology, if viewed detached, tend in 
themselves to render vague the idea of necessary 
relation. But if they are viewed, as they should 
be, in connection with astronomy, physics, 
chemistry, physiology, and psychology, they will 
lead to different and more correct conclusions, 
and, consequently, will render of more value 
judgments formed upon involved questions.” 

‘‘ Very true,” remarks Taira, who is a patient, 
because so interested a listener. 

‘‘In the past century the errors and failures 
in schemes of charity and education, the false 
interpretation of history, the mistakes in legis- 
lation and sociology were due, among other 
causes, to failure in understanding the laws of 
mind. The motives and workings of individuals 
and of communities cannot be understood with- 
out a knowledge of psychology. Questions of 
a sociological nature demand this as a condition 


24 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


of intelligent action. An adequate knowledge 
of psychology cannot be had without a knowl- 
edge of the brain functions. This again is based 
on a knowledge of biology and physiology, and 
these in turn are related to chemistry and phys- 
ics, and chemistry and physics are related to 
astronomy and geology. No one whose opinion 
is of value now disputes these relations, but 
most of our colleges and universities of the 
nineteenth century willfully failed to see the 
necessities of them. Their ideas of physical 
and psychological relations were clouded and 
mixed. These are some of the essential things 
which we teach, and which every man ought to 
know, whatever else he may know. They con- 
cern and influence the every-day interests of all. 
Without them it is impossible for men to form- 
ulate a right standard of conduct and of living, 
and it is more than probable, even with irre- 
- proachable intentions, that his conduct will be 
at variance with the nature of things, and at war 
with right and justice.” 

“ Nature,” says Taira, “makes no distinction 
between ignorance and intention, piety or de- 
pravity ; she never allows for mistakes, never 
compromises, and is unfailing in the bestowal 
of rewards and in the infliction of penalties. W e 
may infer, therefore, that these are things a 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


25 


college should teach, whatever else it may offer 
instruction in.” 

''Yes,” resumes the professor. " Our primary 
and secondary schools, and our universities, 
which you will visit, are now founded on these 
principles, but it has only been in the present 
century that these institutions have been so or- 
ganized as to properly aid in useful scientific 
education and research.” 

" But have you not had for centuries,” asks 
Taira, "great universities, rich and powerful in- 
stitutions of learning, aided and fathered by 
churches still more rich and powerful, supposed 
to combine the learning of the land, claiming to 
be the depositories of all knowledge, as well as 
of the only standards of truth and right, and de- 
claring themselves infallible and the sole com- 
petent leaders and teachers of men? Tell me 
why did they not discover long ago, and show to 
men these great and continuous chains of scien- 
tific truths and facts, embodying the laws of their 
being and environment, and lead them to the 
broader and happier lives which we now see 
around us.” 

" We had all these institutions,” answers the 
professor, " but their history up to recent years, 
shows their line of conduct to have been mostly 
one of opposition to the higher human progress^ 


26 


SJIADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


rather than in aid of it. Our educational insti- 
tutions were founded on a theological basis or 
constitution, which directed and limited their 
field of action. They became assimilated with 
the religious institutions of the day and were 
mostly controlled by them. Any one who taught 
at variance with their principles met, right or 
wrong, fierce hostility from both. At the in- 
stigation of these very institutions, hundreds of 
thousands of the best and most brilliant men 
have perished by torture and fire. These in- 
stitutions with their vested interests were 
founded on a belief of a special creation ; that 
the human mind was not related to anything in 
this world, and was neither the result nor the 
subject of natural laws. Everything was sub- 
ject to a supernatural force, outside of and con- 
trolling the natural. They opposed scientific 
research and bitterly antagonized scientific ad- 
vance since they disproved the special creation 
doctrine. La Place’s Nebular theory, founded 
on the basis of Newton’s laws, was denounced 
as an attempt to dethrone God. 

“ In 1855 Herbert Spencer’s psychology, and 
in 1859 Darwin’s theory of natural selection and 
the survival of the fittest, were bitterly opposed 
by our vested educational and theological insti- 
tutions. They were hostile to all these advances. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


"7 


and decided that if true, they were not proven; 
at any rate, they were all outside of humanity, 
rhe continuity and interdependent relations 
of all things were either not seen or not ad- 
mitted. Some institutions offered a compro- 
mise in the shape of scientific courses in which 
the sciences were dealt with through poor text- 
books, instead of experimentally. They were 
deemed matters unrelated to each other, and 
having no necessary relation to other things, 
while the study itself was limited whenever 
scientific facts conflicted with the doctrine of 
the supposed supernatural. The only methods 
that could render them of great value, explana- 
tion and proof of the necessary and unfailing 
continuity of all the sciences, and their invariable 
relations to all mind and matter, were carefully 
avoided. Their opposition to the laws of free- 
dom and right and to scientific facts, proved that 
they had no criterion of truth, did not know it 
when it was set before them, and were conse- 
quently incompetent leaders.” 

‘'With what,” questions Taira, “did they fill 
in the time of students, when matters of the 
greatest relative value were either completely 
ignored or treated in an unworthy manner ?” 

“ In the study of languages,” says the profes- 
sor, “ dead, — perished through uselessness ; in 


28 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


the study of theological superstitions ; of history, 
often untrue ; of ancient literature of a mytho- 
logical character and questionable morality ; in 
the study of speculative philosophies having little 
or no value as guides to our-present civilization.” 

“ But were there not students,” says Taira, 
“ who objected to spending the best years of their 
lives in the study of languages that had perished 
from disuse, of history that was often untrue, 
and of the nature of personal gossip, of theolog- 
ical superstitions, and of ancient mythological 
and immoral literature?” 

“Yes,” answers the professor, “but for a long 
time the torture-chamber and death, and, in the 
nineteenth century, social ostracism, awaited all 
such. But there were thoughtful men of broad 
minds, who saw the folly of spending their time 
on matters so frivolous, of so little relative im- 
portance, and all leading to the continual slavery 
of men.” 

“ These men refused to follow the teachings 
of the old schools and institutions, and, disregard- 
ing the unpleasant consequences to themselves, 
searched out the natural laws of cause and effect, 
of right and of happines, and became the leaders 
of men in the new life. Such men were Frank- 
lin, Watt, Stephenson, Faraday, John Stuart 
Mill, Tyndall, Darwin, Huxley, Herbert Spen- 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


29 


cer, and a long list of others. With a more 
noble conception of the ideal, these men laid the 
foundations of our present social, educational, 
scientific, and philosophical systems, and ren- 
dered possible the greater progress in human 
happiness which you see around us. 

“ The names of these men were, for the most 
part, not on the lists of the great educational 
and theological institutions, and the opposition 
to the scientific truths which these men dis- 
covered, and to the consequent greater human 
welfare which they made possible, came princi- 
pally from men trained in these educational and 
theological institutions. 

“ The great advance in the physical and social 
sciences, and the consequent metamorphoses in 
education, have mostly taken place in the pres- 
ent century. Up to this time, our colleges and 
universities, if they taught the branches of 
of science at all, also taught that they had 
nothing to do with the interests, hopes, or fears 
of humanity, and that any different views of the 
sciences could only be evolved through hatred 
to th*e church and Christian beliefs. 

The branch of science called biology has 
destroyed the once mystical domain of mind, 
while the natural history of man, both of body 
and of mind, is so well known, that he is proved 


, 3 ° 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


to be but an evolved animal, mentally and physi- 
cally with a lineage stretching far back into a 
remote geological past. Those who opposed 
these truths most bitterly were at last silenced 
by the evidence of them. Then the opponents 
of scientific advance tried to show that nature 
had in some way been supplemented by arbi- 
trary supernatural gifts, which could not be 
deduced from man’s natural history. But this 
position also had at last to be abandoned, as 
did the efforts of the societies for psychic 
research, whiclt failed to find mind existing, or 
acting, outside of matter. 

“ The knowledge of the natural history of 
man, acquired through the aid of ethnology, 
philology, psychology, and other branches of 
science, proved inaccurate and worthless all 
former conceptions of him, and rendered worth- 
less, absolutely worthless, as standards or guides, 
almost everything that had been written.” 

“Yes,” says Taira, “it has been a busy 
century for our great thinkers and workers, for 
the great discoveries made in the physical, 
moral, and mental sciences, especially in 
psychology, the great advances in philosophic 
and scientific thought, have made it necessary 
that ethics and history, as well as nearly all 
literature, should be rewritten.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


31 


“All educational institutions,” says the pro- 
fessor, “ founded upon the old theories, as they 
nearly all were, had to be metamorphosed to 
adapt them to the new knowledge acquired 
mostly in this century,” and his tone grew more 
emphatic. “ Histories of the past, written in 
the last century, are comparatively valueless. 
The science of evolution has rendered worthless 
all previous moralizing upon history, education, 
the universe, man, and nature. The volumes of 
the pre-evolution age, no matter how ably 
written, cannot help one, for their premises are 
false ; they are comparatively valueless now. 
The old theories of astronomy, of chemistry, of 
physics, and of electricity, and of social science 
have but little value to-day. The old standards 
of right, equity, justice, and honor have been 
modified and supplemented by the broader ones 
of a higher and more advanced civilization. 

“In biology no one now appeals to Agassiz 
or Cuvier. Psychology dates only from Herbert 
Spencer’s works, published in 1855. All this 
has caused a profound and radical change in 
Christian beliefs. As far back as the last cen- 
tury the Rev. Dr. Martineau, whose life had 
been spent in defense of historic Christianity, 
was obliged to conclude that the Christ of the 
Church was unhistorical. And Clifford said he 


32 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


parted with Christian beliefs, 'with such search- 
ing trouble as only cradle faiths can cause.’ 
The historian, President White, of Cornell, de- 
clared that ' the anthropologists had destroyed 
the whole theological theory of the fall of man.’ 

" Our universities and colleges were all 
founded upon theories of the universe, of mat- 
ter, of life, of mind, of history, of sociology, and 
of psychology, which crumbled to dust. None 
stood the test of modern science. The evolu- 
tion was complete. The old theories, in pres- 
ence of the new facts, were useless and powerless, 
and they perished with those who held them. 

" The adherents of the old ideas could not 
assimilate, amalgamate, nor compromise with 
the new, for the new had destroyed the founda- 
tions of that which the old held to be true — and 
so, perforce, the past has come to be broken 
from. Its great ones are no longer our teachers 
and leaders in knowledge. The education of 
the past was inadequate , and incompetent to 
train a mind, so that it could assimilate or 
appreciate genuine knowledge, or follow the 
laws of correct living. The old was transformed. 
Science has changed the ideals of the race. 
From the old has been evolved a new heaven, 
and a new earth, and men live in a different 
sphere.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


33 


The speaker rises, adding, '' And now I beg 
you to excuse me. lolas and Isis will take you 
by-and-by to some of our schools and give you 
all information concerning our methods.” 

Taira thanks the professor, who, before with- 
drawing, introduces a beautiful girl. 

Let me present to you Miss Pdossy Har- 
jeson,” he says somewhat proudly, and, in a 
lower tone, “ one of our most prominent and 
esteemed society belles. Miss Flossy will tell 
you of our social usages. She is a great traveler 
and a good observer also. You will find her most 
interesting and you will take her in to dinner.” 

Miss Harjeson is a fair brunette, with rich 
brown hair, soft, lustrous hazel eyes, and a 
graceful, winning, and dignified bearing, which 
has been enhanced by the advantages of travel 
and study in foreign lands. 

'‘You must tell me all about Japan,” says 
Flossy, immediately making Taira feel at ease 
with himself and with her. “ I have ever so 
many questions to ask you. For instance,” 
looking naive, and quite bewildering him with a 
coquettish glance from her lustrous eyes, " do 
the Japanese ever flirt? ” 

Taira says : “ I know so little about it that I 
shall have to ask you for a definition of the 
word flirt. What is it. Miss Harjeson?” 


34 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


“ Let me see,” says Flossy, musingly, resting 
her cheek upon her jeweled hand for a moment, 
and smiling in dimpled amusement at her own 
thought. “ I think a proper definition would 
be this : A flirt, of either sex, is a person who 
tries to keep as near the edge of a precipice as 
possible without falling off. Now, tell me all 
about Japan. I am eager to listen.” 

He likes her tactful little way of changing a 
subject when it becomes slightly dangerous, and 
she likes the way he has of bestowing tender 
eye-beams upon her at exactly the right points 
in the agreeable conversation. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


35 


CHAPTER III. 

At Professor Busbey’s entertainment, Mr. 
Taira learns much of the habits of New York 
society. He enjoys it all in a serious fashion. 
A Japanese is always serious in his manner, 
even when he jokes, for there are Japanese 
jokers, impossible as it is to imagine such 
beings, and there is much wit, though it is hard 
for a European to comprehend it in the litera- 
ture of Japan. 

There are ladies, of course, who are very 
kind to the young Japanese, yet none, he thinks, 
are as beautiful as the blue-eyed Isis. She is 
indeed an unusual girl. The exceeding beauty 
of her complexion has caused her to be given 
the pet name of '' The Blush of the Rose.” 
The appellation, when Taira chances to over- 
hear it, impresses him as most appropriate. She 
is a fresh and charming damsel, who combines 
with her accomplishments a broad scientific, 
philosophical, and practical education. 

She sings exquisitely from the most difficult 
operas, sketches the picturesque islands of the 


3 ^ 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


Gulf of Mexico, that lie in dreamy loveliness, 
their pines and palms outlined against the blue 
sky of Florida. Or she paints in oil the por- 
traits of those whom she admires ; and repro- 
duces in water-color dainty bits of landscape seen 
here and there, excelling in all these features 
of artistic skill. She rides, she fences, she 
recites, she smiles radiantly, and dresses divinely, 
and, Taira is surprised to learn, she shoots so 
gracefully and successfully that, if the name of 
“ Rose ” did not fit her so well, she would 
surely be called Diana. Her mental and physi- 
cal developments have been kept well abreast. 
She has been trained to carry a gun without 
any sort of fatigue. Afraid of rifles, or horses, 
or dogs, or wildcats ? Oh, no, afraid of nothing. 
She joins to these the culture and the tact 
which only travel in many lands can give. 

Dinner being announced, Taira escorts Miss 
Flossy to the dining-room, while Isis takes the 
arm of an international celebrity. They all 
speak Volapuk, which is the international lan- 
guage. One of the pleasant features of this 
grand and elaborate repast is a toast, “Our 
Host,” responded to by Mr. Erasmus White, 
an eminent scientist. Referring to the great 
advance of the age in scientific and philosophic 
thought, he lets his large, clear eyes, which are 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


37 


those of a keen thinker and a loyal friend, roam 
eloquently toward the beloved professor. 

“To our host,” he says, “is due in a great 
degree the founding of the United Republics of 
the Civilized World, and the consequent aboli- 
tion of war and its train of evils. To our host 
is also largely due the immense development of 
the physical, economic, and social sciences of the 
present century, and the resulting vast amelio- 
rations in the condition of humanit)'. War is 
no more. Time and space have been practically 
annihilated. Unhappiness and misery, resulting 
from man’s oppression of man, are largely dim- 
inished. Self slavery, resulting from ignorance 
and superstition, is gone. The perpetuation of 
physical suffering and of want and crime, through 
customs dependent upon prejudice and unnatural 
sociological conditions have disappeared with 
those conditions. Paternal governments and 
monopolies are of the past.” 

“ Look around us at this table and compare 
what we see with what would have been possible 
one hundred years ago. Behold our friends 
who have come from all quarters of the civilized 
globe to pay honor to our noble host on this his 
i3Qth anniversary. My friend on my right. Dr. 
Salsbury, left his home in London twenty hours 
ago. Dr. Virchow, on my left, was unter den 


38 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


Linden in Berlin twenty-four hours ago, and our 
esteemed friend and colleague, Gambetta, was 
dining at the Palace of the Elysee in Paris at 
this hour yesterday. The milk which you sip 
with your coffee was brought from Ohio in two 
hours, and these fruits from California in ten 
hours. The beautiful flowers that are every- 
where around us were blooming on their stems 
in mine host’s own gardens in Florida six hours 
ago. These luscious tropical fruits were but 
yesterday taken from his own farm in Cuba. 

“ These rare melons are some that our honored 
guest Taira Minomoto had plucked from his own 
vines in Japan seven days ago. 

“ In this reunion of cosmopolitan friends from 
the great centres of the earth we now see exem- 
plified the common universal brotherhood of all 
civilized men, and the community of their in- 
terests, we are unfettered by the old narrow 
limits of states. The whole world is our beloved 
home. 

“ Will we lull our senses with sweet amuse- 
ment, or fathom the secrets of earth and heaven ? 
Poets, artists in painting and sculpture, music 
and song, philosophers and scientists from all 
the world, minister to our gentler moods, or 
unveil for us the secrets of mind and matter, 
time and space.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


39 


Further extracts from the brilliant speeches 
of the men and women present might be given, 
but one more will perhaps suffice. 

The world’s right to freedom of exchange 
and of contract,” said a pleasing speaker, ''is 
unfettered by any imaginary lines or shallow 
reciprocity. We welcome ships and their car- 
goes from all lands, coming not through the 
allurements of bounties, but through the free — 
competition of merchants, seeking to exchange 
the products of their domain for ours, whether 
these be for our necessities, our comforts, or our 
luxuries. 

“ Look upon these costly fabrics and these 
gems of art which surround, us. See how this 
table tempts us, gracefully set with rare flowers 
and viands, with fruits and wines, all these 
chosen and brought from every clime, while 
fair ladies give iclat to pearls and sparkling 
gems from all the mines of earth.” 

As the music and the speeches alternate, 
Taira listens and says little. When the hour 
for the guests’ departure comes, he is the first to 
bid his host adieu, to express his enjoyment of 
the evening, and retire to his room. But once 
there he does not go to bed; on the contrary, he 
takes from his case his books and writing ma- 
terials and works for long hours over a report 


40 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


which he copies into an exquisite little book 
with strange golden dragons on the cover, 
under this heading : 

Report of the conversation of Professor 
Busbey on the subject of educational institu- 
tions, also much else that I have learned.” 

Meanwhile, strange things are happening in 
the mansion, where Mr. Taira left his host stand- 
ing in the centre of his drawing-room, receiving 
the adieus of his cruests and utterino* suitable 
words in return. 

VTry handsome in his old age does Professor 
Busbey look, as he stands between his handsome 
great-grandson, lolas, and his beautiful great- 
granddaughter, Isis. 

A knowledge of physical laws, combined with 
fine mental culture and perfect bodily training, 
have made them in expression and form models 
for a sculptor. Isis resembles the Venus of 
Milo, lolas the Apollo Belvidere. Their cos- 
tumes can scarcely be described. They are 
beautiful, and the outcome of the thoughts and 
needs of the generation. Soft draperies leave 
the supple body of Isis all its natural freedom. 
H er shoes do. not deform the foot. She wears 
colors and forms that harmonize. 

A hundred years is a long time, and every- 
thing, taste included, changes in a century. Pro- 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


41 


ffessor Busbey christened these great-grand> 
children of his to suit his own taste, which ac- 
counts for their strange names : lolas and 
Isis. 

Lolas, for his part, is a being who could not 
have existed in the nineteenth century. He is 
at once an athlete and a man of intellect. They 
have discovered how to make their young men 
both in the twentieth century. 

'' I am glad,” says the professor, when he has 
returned the hearty handgrasp of his last retir- 
ing guest, and the three are alone together, I 
am glad that I have been enabled to live so 
long and so comfortably. This has been a very 
happy evening for me. So many friends are 
given to but few, and they are all dear to me. 
The joys of age are greater than the joys of 
youth, for youth is ever restless, age is calm. 
Ah ! how many great men I have seen pass 
away, at seventy, at eighty, at ninety years, men 
who should have lived to a good old age had 
they but regarded the laws of nature. Ah ! in 
my early years, many people died young through 
ignorance of how to preserve life. I was fifty 
years old before man began to discover the 
secrets of nature which intimately concern our 
lives and our happiness, and are now as open 
books to our school children. Yet this is only 


42 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

the dawn of better days, — only the dawn, but it 
is a brio'ht one.” 

“You have helped the sun to rise, grand- 
father,” says lolas, and as he speaks the little 
silver-voiced call that advises those of the house- 
bold that some one is at the door, is heard. 

The professor turns with a start and listens 
as the servant admits the applicant. 

“ It is too late for a guest. Some message 
must have come to us,” says Isis, with a little 
touch of terror in her voice. 

“ A message — yes, it is a message,” says the 
professor, in a singular tone. He advances to- 
ward the door. A man has entered, one who. is 
a stranger to the others. 

'Fhe professor lifts his hand as in warning, 
and they step aside. 

“ You are sure,” they hear the professor say. 

“ Yes,” the man replies, “ I am sure.” 

“ Bring me my cloak and hat,” the professor 
cries to lolas, “ I must go forth with this man. 
Make haste, lose no time.” 

“ Let me go with you, grandfather,” says lolas. 

“ No, I must go alone,” says the old man'. 
He vanishes before either can say a word. 

The two young people look at each other. 

“What can it all mean ?” they ask. Neither 
can answer the question. 


i . 

i 


CHAPTER IV. 


Long they watch. At last lolas,, with no 
doubt in his mind but that all is well with his 
grandfather, retires to bed and Isis is left alone. 

She sits beside the window listening for every 
sound, asking herself where her grandfather has 
gone and why he went. 

She looks back upon her life with him and 
remembers other strange absences when, con- 
trary to his usual custom, he gave no account 
of his adventures. Usually he tells the two 
who make his famil)’ what he has seen and what 
he has thought or learned during the time of 
their separation. 

Can there be a mystery of any sort in her 
grandfather’s life? she ' asks herself, as the 
hours glide on and still 'the professor remains 
absent. 

lEit now she hears in the air the low, regular 
beat which announces the approach of an air- 
car. They are as common as were carriages in 
the nineteenth century, but there seems some- 
thing ominous in the slowness with which this 
special one comes toward her. Now she can 
see, by certain signs and tokens, that it is a con- 


44 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


veyance spoken of as “ the flying ambulance,” 
in which sick or wounded people are conveyed 
whither it is desired that they should go. Her 
heart stands still ; she allows her imagination to 
have full sport with terrors. Her grandfather 
has been injured, he has been taken ill, is per- 
haps dead ! 

She opens the window, puts forth her head 
and watches, with upturned eyes, the solemn 
advance of the car. Up the street comes a little 
group of people, all looking upward at the car. 
They seem to know that it is bound for the pro- 
fessor’s home, for they pause at its entrance and 
look upward, watching the ambulance as it ap- 
proaches and descends. 

Isis has scarcely power to move until, with 
joy unutterable, she sees her grandfather stand- 
ing on the pavement, giving directions to the 
two ambulance officers, who lift from the 
cushions something wrapped in a soft quilt of 
lilac silk, which they bring into the house. 
Whatever has happened, he is safe and well. 
He pauses at the door and addresses the crowd : 

“ Friends,” he says, “ I ask your courtesy. An 
invalid has just been conveyed into my house. 
Any noise might prove injurious ; will .^you re- 
frain from loud conversation?” 

An instant more and the crowd had dis- 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


45 


persed. The ambulance had risen into the air 
and departed, and the professor takes Isis by the 
hand and leads her into the dining-room. 

The bearers have placed their burden upon a 
couch. It is a figure, fair as a lily, clad in a 
costume which very little resembles any which 
Isis is in the habit of seeing. She has a wasp- 
like waist, quite unfamiliar to the girl of the 
twentieth century, and her feet and hands seem 
very singular in the pale light. But her face and 
hair are lovely, even as she lies there, pale and 
with closed eyes. 

d'he professor stops and places his hand upon 
her heart. 

“It is only a swoon,” he says, “only a 
swoon.” 

“Who is she, grandpa?” asks Isis. 

“ Her name,” says the professor, “is Grace 
Malcom. She is one hundred and twenty years 
old. She has been asleep for a century. Wak- 
ing from her trance the new world terrified her, 
she has swooned.” 

A terror possesses Isis ; she fears that her 
grandfather is out of his mind. 

“Are you sure?” she asks, “can such things 
be?” 

“ Why is one thing more wonderful than 
another?” he asks, “when so much that was 


46 


S//ADOJFS BEFORE ; OR, 


once a mystery is now clear to us. In science 
all things are possible within the limits of the 
laws of nature. Enough that this is so. I assure ^ 
you of it.” 

But, if siich a woman existed, how is it that 
all the world does not know of it?” Isis asks. 

‘‘ It would be a marvel for scientists to discuss if 
one slept and slept and slept, as the years passed 
on. Pardon me, but I fancy you are jesting.” 

“ This is no jest,” says the professor. More- 
over, there is work for you to do. You must 
ring for Kala ; she will help you best.” 

Isis touches the little call which communicates 
with Kala’s bedroom. 

“ When Kala comes,” says the professor, 

'' undress this lady, clothe her in a loose silken 
robe and summon me ; be very gentle with her.” 

'‘Yes, I will be gentle,” says Isis. She is ut- 
terly astonished by what she has heard, and the 
strange look in her grandfather’s face and his 

o o ^ 

unusual manner so hurt her that she can hardly 
speak. 

"You are pale, grandpapa,” she ventures to 
say. 

" I am agitated. I am anxious,” he answers. 

" Little one, do not mind me. I have been 
through a strange experience. I have seen eyes 
that closed a hundred years ago, open once 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


47 


more. Lips that have been mute a hundred 
years, have spoken. Is that nothing ? ” 

It is wonderful ! ” says Isis. It must have 
been startling, shocking ! Dear grandfather, I 
will do my best. Forgive me.” 

“ Do your best, Isis, and do it speedily,” 
says the professor, leaving the room as he 
speaks. 

And as the curtains of the entrance drop be- 
hind him, Kala appears at another doorwa}’. 

People have just begun to value the Hindoos 
and to take them into their homes as personal 
attendants. This girl, with her pale, brown 
skin, great, black eyes and lithe figure, is very 
lovely. 

She comes forward at a signal from the up- 
lifted finger of Isis, and kneels down and looks 
into the face of the woman on the floor. 

'' IMy grandfather says she is not dead, Kala,” 
says Isis. The Hindoo girl smiles pitifully. 

He says women used to be like this,” says 
Isis. Now we must undress her.” 

M eanwhile the professor has caused the light 
to grow brighter, and now Isis sees that what 
she supposed to be wings are the high gath- 
ered shoulders and flowing sleeves of a mantle 
of rich, soft silken stuff, trimmed with feathers. 
This they take away. 


48 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


'‘And her gloves,” says Kala. Then Isis 
discovers that the covering of the hands and 
arms is a tight glove of brown kid, buttoned 
above the elbow. When it is drawn off a 
slender but beautiful arm, as pure as pearl, is 
disclosed. So with those strange feet. The 
high-heeled boot of the nineteenth century re- 
moved, there is found under the silk stockings 
a very delicate little foot. 

The more they take from this pretty relic of 
the past, the more human it becomes. But the 
astonishment of Isis and Kala can find no words 
when they come to a stiff construction of linen, 
steel, and whalebone, which is laced tightly 
about the torso of the fair one, so that it has 
become the figure of an hour-glass. 

“ Ah ! the innocent creature ! ” Isis cries. 
“ She has been the victim of some hideous tor- 
ture ! They have put this on her and squeezed 
her breath out of her body ! ” 

All the stuffs are handsome and delicate, and 
there is a great deal of beautiful work on the 
dress and mantle, but everything tears like old 
paper as they remove it. 

When at last the still unconscious woman 
lies wrapped in the silken robe Isis has chosen 
from her own wardrobe, Kala carries the tat- 
tered garments awa)’ and Isis calls the professor. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


49 


For two hours she lingers at the door, anx- 
ious for her grandfather, whom she has never 
seen look so strangely before. For two hours 
Kala crouched at her feet, trembling. 

At last the door opens, the professor comes 
forth with faltering step, pale, trembling, un- 
nerved. 

‘‘ She is conscious,’’ he says, '' Kala must 
watch her. She wakens at a sound, but there 
may be no need of waking ; perhaps the sleep 
may last until long after daybreak.” 

“ I will watch,” says Kala. 

“ This lady has slept a hundred years,” says 
the professor. 

‘‘ rhe master has the wisdom of the serpent,” 
says Kala, bowing, and touching her hands to 
her forehead before she takes her seat. 

But what does it all mean ? Whence does 
the lady come ? ” asked Isis, as she leaves the 
the room with her grandfather. 

“ My child, question me no more, I am very 
weary,” says the old man, sighing. 

Isis, with a new terror upon her, a fear for 
her grandfather’s health, kisses him good night 
and goes to her room. 

For some time, Isis, too deeply agitated to 
sleep, lies listening to the faint sounds that stir 
the air. Once or twice she creeps noiselessly 


50 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


down stairs and enters the drawintr-room. The 
rescued lady lies asleep, her bosom rises and 
falls under the silken coverings. No lonoer 
palid, a blush, faint as that upon the petal of a 
white rose tinges her cheek. 

She is very pretty,” Isis thinks. On a rug- 
beside the lounge Kala lies, her eyes wide open 
and fixed upon the face of her charge. 

‘‘All is well,” she whispers, “ I am keeping 
watch.” 

In the professor’s room she hears the mur- 
mur of voices, and fancies that her grandfather 
is telling lolas more than he has revealed to 
her. But since lolas is with him, her fears 
abate, and while she is declaring to herself that 
she shall not sleep, slumber overtakes her. 


CHAPTER V. 


In those delicious moments in which youth 
and health return from dreamland to the reali- 
ties of waking life, Isis vaguely remembers that 
something singular has happened. Once full)' 
aroused, the strange events of the past evening 
return vividly to her mind. She rises on her 
dimpled elbow and touches a little silver calk 
As its musical sounds die away, Kala enters the 
room with her usual noiseless tread and stands 
smiling upon her young mistress, who cries out 
impetuously : 

''Tell me what has happened, Kala ! How is 
the strange lady? How is grandfather? Is all 
well in the house ? ” 

"All is well. Miss Isis,” Kala replies. " d'he 
strange lady sleeps sweetly. The master and the 
good doctor have seen her, and they have given 
her something to make her sleep still longer. 
The master begs that you will not go to her 
until he gives you leave and breakfast is served,” 
and Kala bends her head again. 

Isis has by this time sprung to the floor and 
vanishes behind the curtains of her bathroom, 


52 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


whence she emerges, fresh as -a rose from a 
summer shower. 

It is not long before Kala has burnished her 
fair hair to gold, bound her graceful robe about 
her delicate waist with a silken girdle, and placed 
upon her feet her dainty slippers, and Isis, even 
lovelier at dawn than she was in the evening, 
hastens down stairs. 

Isis is delighted to see her grandfather at the 
head of the table. He looks unusually well. 

Taira Minamoto rises as Isis enters, and 
utters a neat translation from supposedly a Japa- 
nese poet which conveys the well-known senti- 
ment : “ May good digestion wait on appetite, 
and health on both.” 

Isis responds in kind and the meal goes on. 

Kala glides about the table seeing to their 
wants, but there is little to do. The public 
caterers purvey for all men, high and low, in 
these days. 

A peculiar freshness is noticeable in the room, 
d'here has been no cooking in the house, and 
when the meal is over the touch of a call will 
bring those who shall speedily remove all traces 
of everything. What some writer of the eigh- 
teenth century has described as “ a house 
haunted by dead dinners ” cannot exist under 
this system. 


A CENTURY ON WAR/). 


55 


Nothing is said by her grandfather of their 
strange guest, and Isis feels that the professor 
does not wish the matter discussed before Taira 
Minamoto at present. 

It occurs to her also, that in making the state- 
ment the night before that this girl had slept a 
hundred years, he had merely repeated the ac- 
count given him by one of those visionaries who 
exist in every century and which he now be- 
lieved would not bear investigation. Or, it 
might be — though that seemed unlike him — 
that he had been jesting with her, teasing her. 
She says nothing, therefore, beyond what is 
necessary during the ordinary courtesies of the 
table, and waits for her gt-andfather to intro- 
duce some general topic, d'his he shortly does, 
as follows : — 

“Before we begin our travels, 1 think it well 
to take Mr. Taira about the city of New York. 
There are many things that will deeply 
interest him. Amongst others, as he desires to 
make a special report of our methods with chil- 
dren, I believe that a visit to one of our great 
' homes’ and to our free primary and secondary 
schools will aid him immensely. There are 
carried out all the best ideas of the century in 
regard to feeding, clothing, educating, elevating 
the mind and raising the moral tone, and these 


54 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


girls and boys are prepared to enter upon the 
study of professions or are instructed in handi- 
crafts, and fitted for the actual world in which 
they must live. Isis is deeply interested in these 
schools and she with her brother will take you 
there. This morning I must occupy in unex- 
pected duties, and you will excuse my absence 
from the party.” 

“Your will, wisest of men, is my desire,” 
sa)’s Taira, bowing. 

“ However,” says the professor, “before )'Ou 
make your visit I will describe one of the best 
homes for orphans that existed a hundred years 
ago, in order that you may note the improve- 
ments. The buildings were fine for the day, 
and were in the handsomest part of New York, 
near one of the parks. It was supported by the 
Roman Catholic Church, whose bounties to the 
poor were always great, and its teachers were 
persons who had joined religious orders, re- 
nounced the world, and spent their lives in 
sacrifice. 

“ The ladies who presided over the girls’ 
department had even given up their worldly 

name and adopted others. Miss , in religion. 

Mother Anastasia, at one period presided over 
the whole female establishment. She had taken 
vows when she was but eighteen, and at that: 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


55 


period sacrificed a wealth of golden hair, which 
fell to her feet, and left parents, friends, and all 
who were dear to her, to devote herself to 
heaven. In the band and cap of a sister, straight 
black garments concealing her graceful figure, 
she dwelt within the walls of a religious retreat 
until called upon to assume the charge of an 
orphanage. Well she did her duty, and pure 
as angels seemed the sisters who obeyed her 
bidding. No unkind words were' ever spoken 
to the orphans, who were clad in uniform, and 
well fed ; who slept softly, and were doctored 
as well as the doctors knew how'in those days. 
There was an excellent annex to this establish- 
ment, where the babies of working women were 
cared for through the day, fed, played with, and 
restored to their parents at night, thus enabling 
the poor creatures to earn their bread un- 
troubled by fears that their little ones would 
suffer. Children who had lost one parent were 
sometimes admiwed to the orphanage, and, at 
times, influence was brought to bear to admit 
those whose parents were dissolute and unfit- 
ting protectors for the little creatures. 

'‘ Every room was always full, every place at 
table, every seat in the chapel. They arose at 
dawn to go to prayers; they breakfasted.; they 
studied. Interspersed with their lessons were 


56 SHADOWS BEFORE ; JOR, 

preparations for that most important era in the 
life of a Catholic girl, her confirmation. There 
were prayers now and prayers again. In the 
little certificates of progress, which Mother 
Anastasia examined every month, ' Devout 
religious observance ’ had as many marks of 
merit and of demerit as any of the studies. 

“As the children grew up, they were kept 
very busy, it is true, but on matters rather 
detrimental than useful in the world. They 
were accomplished, but they were crammed 
with superstitions of every sort ; they were not 
permitted to think for themselves. The girls, 
generally, had a pretty air and a winning way, 
but the boys had learnt little or nothing of 
value in the physical, mental, and moral sciences ; 
they were even forbidden to make philosophical 
researches, or to trust in the discoveries of 
science if they clashed with any priestly dogma. 
J ust, moral, and equitable principles were entirely 
forgotten. The histories used in the school 
were prepared with a view to the religious belief 
inculcated, rather than as true narratives of 
events that had occurred. And kings and 
queens, warriors and logicians, were saints if 
they were Catholics, and friends if they were 
Protestants. 

“ And so these young men — we will say 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


57 


nothing of the girls — came out into the world 
well stuffed with Greek and Latin, but also with 
bigotry and superstition, simply good Catholics, 
not good citizens, while Protestant orphan 
asylums of the same sort, all over the world 
pinched and narrowed and dwarfed the minds 
of their pupils quite as much as the Catholics 
had done, until the period came when men 
knew that the street gamins who earned their 
living by selling papers, and gathered their 
own ideas from the bulletin boards at the doors 
of the newspaper offices, made better citizens, 
knew more of the world, and were capable of 
better thought and truer opinion than were 
these well-cared-for children of the religious 
asylums. In time those asylums grew to be so 
well ordered for the physical welfare of their 
charges that nothing could excel them. Men 
dared to cry out against bad food, poor cloth- 
ing, insufficient sanitary regulations very soon, 
but it was long before the people dared to say 
of any outrage to mental and moral develop- 
ment, or to life and liberty, perpetrated under 
the disguise of religion, ‘ this shall not be.’ Long 
after the auction-blocks of slavery in the South 
were abolished, beautiful girls and defenseless 
women were, with the aid of specious religious 
seductions, immured and imprisoned for life. 


58 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

convent slaves, their fortunes grasped and con- 
trolled by the Church. 

“ The Girard College, of Philadelphia, took 
the first step toward liberty in this direction, 
and brought upon its agnostic founder much 
reproach in consequence. Perhaps Girard went 
too far, for not only did he forbid religious 
teaching in the school, but it was one of its 
regulations that no minister should be admitted 
within its doors. 

“I remember,” says the professor, “as a 
youth in my teens, going to visit the college in 
company with an elderly gentleman who wore a 
white neckcloth, and being challenged at the 
door on this account. ‘ If you are a preacher,’ 
said the man, an ancient and fierce-eyed being, 
who guarded the entrance, ‘ you can’t cross the 
sill, whatever you may say.’ 

“ However, 1 swore that my old friend be- 
longed to the laity, and we were admitted at 
last. You will see for yourself how things are 
ordered now, and what sort of children our sys- 
tem has produced.” 

“ I hope you are interested in the children, 
Mr. Taira,” says Isis. 

“Who is not?” asks the professor. “The 
children of the present generation will be the 
men and women of the next.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


59 


Those who sent me here are most anxious 
to know the best method of educating these 
little ones, physically, mentally, and morally,” 
says Taira. 

‘‘There can be no doubt,” says the professor, 
that where little ones have intelligent parents, 
home is the best place for them ; but even in 
these days of advancement, circumstances are 
such that all are not capable of doing the best, 
even by their own little ones, and, moreover, 
there are still many orphans. These unfortu- 
nates are now reared and educated in pleasant 
homes — homes in every sense. We never speak 
of them as charitable institutions. 

“ This principle we carry into everything now. 
Any child reared and educated at public ex- 
pense is neither humiliated by a sense of obli- 
gation to others, nor by the wearing of any 
badge of charity.” 

lolas and Isis now go with Taira to the De- 
partment of Public Instruction, where they are 
given the curriculum of the free primary and 
secondary schools, a similar programme being 
adopted all over the United States. It read as 
follows : 

Reading and writing. 

Elements of the present century English 
literature. i 


6o 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


The English language, Volapiik'^* (with spe- 
cial courses in modern languages, if desired). 

Mathematics — simple. 

Geography — physical and political. 

Modern history, and as much of ancient his- 
tory as bears fair evidence of accuracy, and as 
is of any national concern, both being viewed 
in their economical and social bearings ; and 
the lessons to be drawn therefrom are taught. 

Ethics, moral and ethical instruction, teach- 
ing man his duty to himself and to his fellow 
man and the reasons therefor, both being con- 
sidered under their different aspects, physical, 
biological, psychological, and sociological. 

Civic instruction, and the elements of sociol- 
ogy ; teaching the organization of our own gov- 
ernment with its full workings, the rights, 
duties, and obligations of citizens, concerning 
themselves, the social body, and the state. 

The physical sciences and mathematics, with 
actual laboratory demonstrations of their laws. 
Great prominence given to the course in 
physics. 

The elements of political economy and the 
laws of trade and finance. 


* Volapiik is the international language of all states composing 
the united republics of civilized nations. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 6i 

Book-keeping. 

For boys, instruction in the manual use of 
tools and machinery employed in the principal 
trades. 

For girls, instruction in needlework and in 
most of the lighter industrial occupations for 
which they are specially adapted. 

Athletics, for both sexes, as much time being 
devoted to them as may be required to insure 
an evenly balanced mental and physical devel- 
opment. 

The elements of all other branches of science, 
beginning in the following order : 

Cosmography, geology, chemistry, biology, 
botany, zoology, anthropology, psychology, 
physiology, with actual dissection, and the other 
branches in their order with their practical ap- 
plication to hygiene, to the laws of correct liv- 
ing and race improvement, to agriculture, and 
to the industrial and manual arts. 

A course of synthetic philosophy, showing 
the necessary and inseparable continuity of all 
the sciences and the invariable laws governing 
all matter, animate and inanimate, and man’s 
relation to them. 

The elements of drawing, modeling and music. 

riie schools are divided into two grades, 
primary and secondary. The carriculum is 


62 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


nearly the same in each grade. I he primary 
department teaches the simpler elements of the 
sciences. The secondary schools teach them in 
a more involved degree. 

Translations of all that is useful in Greek and 
Latin are read without the student being obliged 
to learn the dead languages. 

The further pursuit of the classics is reserved 
for the universities, is it not?” asks Taira. 

Yes,” answers lolas. “Although we do not 
ignore the minor value of the classics, our first 
duty is to teach the more useful knowledge, and 
thus give to our youths the best possible prepa- 
ration for the actual world in which they must 
live. This is all the state enforces. Full scope 
is given in our universities to whomsoever will, 
for the study of the classics and for the pursuit 
of higher knowledge. The instruction and 
training we give our pupils in our primary and 
secondary schools, enables them, when they 
enter a university, to extend their researches in 
every field much further than it was possible for 
them to do under the old conditions. 

“ Our primary and secondary schools cover 
the ground of and go further than the old col- 
leges and further than the old university-exten- 
sion movement, which were good for their time, 
but which our schools have now replaced.” 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 


^3 


Can the younger pupils understand and 
profit by this broader course of teaching and 
training?” asks Taira. 

'' Yes,” replies lolas. '' A child seeks infor- 
mation about matters of physical science as soon 
as it begins to talk. The first thing it wants is 
an object-lesson of some sort and as soon as it 
is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is 
fit for a modicum of science. In olden times 
people used to talk of the difficulty of teaching 
children such matters and in the same breath 
insisted upon their learning their catechism 
which contained propositions much harder to 
comprehend than anything in this educational 
coil rse. 

‘'You will notice, that our text-books of the 
sciences for beginners are simplified and brought 
down to the understanding of a child of six or 
seven years of age for the primary department, 
and that, they are more complete for advanced 
pupils of the secondary departments.” 

“ Is the curriculum the same for both sexes ? ” 
asks Taira. 

“ With the exception of manual training the 
studies are the same for both sexes,” replies 
Isis, “ but the schools are separate. The 
sciences are taught with actual demonstrations, 
in the field, in the forest, in the mountains, and 


64 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


in the laboratories. In the primary department 
of scientific instruction the kindergarten system 
is employed for beginners. The children begin 
at once in the A B C’s of scientific knowledge. 
Pursuing these they gain in an intelligent and 
practical way, the usual elements of a primary 
education, the elements of mathematics, the 
science and art of numbers, reading, spelling, 
grammar, geography, etc. They learn to be 
logical and to know from experience that an 
opinion without knowledge, or one founded on 
false premises, is worthless. The)' learn to ask 
serious and logical questions. Mental activity 
anci energy and quick perception are necessar- 
ily developed. Habits of thinking, weighing, 
and reasoning are formed. Memory becomes 
active and imagination vivid. Their minds 
receive a higher discipline and a vastly broader 
development in these scientific studies under 
our present system than it is possible for them 
to receive and acquire from and by the study 
of the dead languages and classics, latterly so 
prominent under the old church and college 
system. In the study of nature, they learn that 
nature’s law is everywhere and is inexorable. 
Reliance upon a supernatural law is not coun- 
tenanced. They acquire the idea of the inter- 
relation of each locality with every other, and 


A CENTURY ON II ARB. 


65 


with what it produces to exchange. They dis- 
cover the great cosmopolitan unity and brother- 
hood of the human race and its community of 
interdependent and sympathetic interests in all 
quarters of the earth. From this they learn 
their duty to their fellow men and the reasons 
therefor, and this develops in them a compre- 
hension of, and a love for, the laws of justice, 
and inspires love towards all living things. It 
teaches them the formula of right and of truth. 
The elements of all these are acquired in the 
primary department, so that at the age of 
twelve or at the entrance to the secondary de- 
partment the pupils have already a large fund 
of genuine knowledge and mental power and 
training, and are prepared to make rapid strides 
in acquiring more complete knowledge, and 
towards higher mental and physical develop- 
ment and culture. They now learn to analyze 
nature. They try to search out the essential 
elements of all things, to discover their neces- 
sary relations. They strive to place themselves 
in harmony with all natural laws, and thus learn 
to know more of the possible and the impos- 
sible. From this education is evolved a correct 
knowledge of, and sympathy with, the beautiful, 
the harmonious, and the true in humanity, in 
nature, and in art. Education, except in the 


66 


SB AVOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


universities, is entirely free and compulsory', 
but study in public schools is not compulsory. 
Home education with a public examination is 
accepted. We all feel that the children of 
rich and poor, should have equal facilities in 
preparation for the struggles incident to life 
and for the enjoyunent of life’s pleasures.” 

'' How are the pupils to acquire trades or 
more complete professional knowledge,” asked 
Taira, “ after they have passed through these 
secondary schools ? ” 

‘‘ Each State,” answers lolas, has free pro- 
fessional and technical schools, where one may 
fully acquire any of the mechanical trades, or 
study as a speciality any^ of the usual learned 
professions, such as law, medicine, or agricul- 
ture.” 

'‘Tell me,” says Taira, “how are the aban- 
doned and the poor children who have no suit- 
able homes — how are these reared?” 

“We have for this class,” says lolas, “ insti- 
tutions or home schools, supported by the State, 
where these little ones are taken, boarded, 
clothed, educated, and cared for. These homes 
are somewhat on the plan of the old church 
charitable homes of the past century^ only they 
give quite a different and broader education 
and training to their pupils. Each school is 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


67 


small, accommodating only as many pupils as can 
be given home comforts and personal attention. 
Here any and all poor children, orphans, and 
those whose parents are unable to care for them, 
or even to pay for them, are taken and reared 
at the public expense. Many parents who are 
competent to give their children proper home 
care, but whose occupations prevent their doing 
it, place them in the State home schools and 
pay for them. The expense in these schools is 
very small. Some of our best citizens are now 
educated in the State home schools — precisely 
as many good citizens came from our Protestant 
and Catholic institutions in the older time. 

‘'We have a system of United States univer- 
sities, one in each State, supported by the 
United States Government and managed by the 
secretary of public instruction, and by the edu- 
cational council. This last is composed of 
members representing all the chairs of the uni- 
versities. These universities are modeled some- 
what on the plan of the old university at Berlin 
and the old Sorbonne in Paris. Here all may 
pursue the classics and higher knowledge at will.’' 

“ The curriculum you have shown me is ex- 
tensive,” says Taira Minamoto. “ Have the 
young people time to do it justice ? ” 

“Yes,” answers lolas, “they have the time. 


68 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


and they are generalh' through the whole 
course at from sixteen to eighteen years of 
age. Grandpa says that the programme is not 
longer, nor is it more difficult than that which 
was followed in the old, narrow schools of a 
century ago, only it is different. No time is 
wasted on matters which are not of. high value 
here. Under the old system much of the time 
and energies of the pupils were consumed in tlie 
study of religious and mythological supersti- 
tions, and in religious training; much more 
time was taken up in the study of the classics 
and of languages that had long since perished 
from unfitness for use. But little preparation 
was given the pupils for the actual world in 
which the)^ had to live. By many, the old col- 
lege education was considered to be an actual 
detriment to those intending to lead an active 
business life. Now we teach the sciences, and 
scientific truths, wherever they lead, and that 
which concerns the world in which men must 
live, and show them their relations to it. We 
prepare men for the actual struggles of life in 
which they must engage. We teach the laws 
of right and wrong, of equity and' justice, and 
of love and kindness towards all things. In 
these schools we have no time for the dead past 
— only for the lessons it teaches. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


69 


Education is free and equal, and the ele- 
ments of a scientific education are compulsory, 
but parents may send their children to school 
or educate them at home, as they prefer. If 
educated at home, children must, at the end of 
each school term, pass a public examination on 
the same subjects and equal to the examination 
which those educated in the schools are required 
to pass. If a child fail in this examination, he 
must enter the public schools. This system 
leaves parents free, when successful in results, 
to employ their own methods and to teach what- 
soever else they may wish at home.” 

'' Please give me some facts regarding co- 
education,” says Taira. 

The schools for girls and the schools for 
boys,” says lolas, ''are quite apart, and parents 
scarcely permit their daughters to meet young* 
men until after high-school graduation. Co- 
education exists in universities only.” 

While this visit to the schools engages the 
time of the interested and discursive group, let 
us return to the scene in Professor Busbey’s 
home. 


70 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


CHAPTER VI. 

After leaving Taira, lolas, and Isis, the pro- 
fessor, drawing a great breath of relief, hurries 
to the drawing-room, while Kala still sits beside 
the couch on which the sleeping stranger lies. 

Dismissing the little maid, he stands looking 
down upon the fair face, long and earnestly. 

“ My darling,” he whispers. ” My darling— 
my beautiful one! What lies before you, grief 
or happiness; how will you bear what you must 
learn ? ” 

He paces the floor softly, but with every evi- 
dence of terrible agitation. 

“ So strange a situation was never conceived 
by mortal brain,” he says. “ Not twenty-four 
hours ago I said, speaking from my soul, ‘ Age 
is the time of peace.’ I believed that this was 
so. I had achieved both wealth and fame, and 
no longer cared for more of either. Death had 
no terrors for me, nor did I believe that in this 
life any further trials awaited me. The passion 
called forth was a thing of my lost youth. The 
tender affection^ of the children of my children’s 
children were mine, and they loved me. I had 
been blessed with strength and health, which 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 71 

would once have been considered miraculous at 
my age, and was still useful to my fellow men. 
I had won the right to say, my days are peace- 
ful. And suddenly, all is changed. I rejoice, 
1 suffer, I hope, I fear. Emotion is at war with 
resolution. My will grows feeble, I am not 
sure that I shall be able to control my heart. 

“ Oh ! if this had happened long ago, when I 
was yet young! Now, all that I can do is to 
command myself; for her sake to keep my secret, 
never to let her know the truth. She will not 
guess it. Yes, all that I can do is to remain 
silent.” 

He ceases his hurried walk, and kneels down 
beside the couch and kisses the hand that lies 
upon the silken covering. 

Then he recalls Kala and gives her some 
directions concerning the vial of red liquid that 
stands near by, bids her call him if the lady 
opens her eyes, and then leaves the room. 

Later, when Taira Minamoto returns, his 
little note-book full, uttering his soft-voiced 
praises of all that he has seen, the professor is 
himself again. He converses on many topics, 
and enlightens his guest on the event of the 
previous night so far as to tell him that a lady 
is at present beneath their roof who has slept a 
hundred years. 


72 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


‘‘ I believe,” says the professor, ‘‘that in the 
state called trance many have been buried alive, 
d he fact that this lady, whose body was not laid 
in the grave as was the custom when she died, 
has revived and still seems to be in her youth, 
as you may see, proves that this is possible, and 
I feel that the case must be curious and inter- 
esting to every one.” 

“ ‘Curious and interesting,’ dear grandfather, 
are mild terms for such an occurrence,” says 
lolas. 

“ It is truly marvelous,” says Taira. “ I did 
not dream there were such wonders in the west- 
ern world.” 

“ I had almost come to the conclusion that 
grandpapa was amusing himself with our credu- 
lity,” says Isis. 

“ There is no mention of this strange occur- 
rence in the papers or on the bulletins,” says 
lolas. 

“ I have not made the facts public, nor do I 
wish them to be communicated to strangers,” 
the professor replied. 

“ Of course,” he adds, speaking, it seems to 
Isis, unnaturally and as if for effect. “ Scientific 
investigations are not made public until they 
are completed.” 

Then he turns to Isis with a smile : 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 73 

“ A great duty has devolved upon us ; the 
fates have willed it, my child,” he says, “ a 
great duty, but to me a delightful one. I shall 
want your aid and that of lolas, but I shall de- 
vote myself to it with more pleasure than I can 
express. This young lady has nearly all to 
learn. We must be her teachers, and we must 
bring to bear all the gentleness and tact that 
love can suggest. Although a graduate of the 
old Vassar College, and well educated for her 
time, her education of the past century is of but 
little avail now. 

“ The standards, the ethics, the ideals of the 
past have crumbled. The very basis of her 
most sacred hopes and fears is now but dust. 
And, what is much more difficult, she has to 
unlearn the most of that which she has been 
taught. The errors, prejudices and weeds of 
the past must be exterminated, before truths 
can take root. And,” he adds softly, “she is a 
lovely creature, the sweetest and most charming 
being! You will delight in her society.” 

“ And how can you know so much about 
her?” asks Isis of her grandfather. 

But he makes no reply and she is left to 
wonder. 

Later, when she thinks he is about to make 
some explanation he only says : “ My dear, I 


74 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


have made an engagement with Mr. Taira. 
We have received an invitation from Mr. Clancy 
Pedew, the great railroad magnate, and presi- 
dent of one of the several great consolidated 
railroad systems of the United States, to exam- 
ine into its methods. I had been telling Mr. 
Taira about it and trying to impress upon him 
the fact that it is one of the most stupendous 
consolidations of capital of which the world has 
ever dreamed.” 

“ Mr. Taira is not,” says Isis, “ a difficult per- 
son to impress with any facts, it seems to me. 
He is eager for general information and has a 
very receptive and responsive mind.” 

“ So you have found him impressionable — sus- 
ceptible ? ” asks the professor smiling, and 
lightly patting the blooming cheek of his pretty 
granddaughter. 

“ Oh, not susceptible in my own case, roman- 
tically speaking. But in that of Flossy certainly 
very favorably impressed,” she answers. 

“ And my sweet ‘ Rose ’ is not jealous ?” he 
questions, knowing well that she is the most 
magnanimous of girls. 

“Oh, no; not in the least. I delight in 
Flossy’s beauty and wit. I am glad that Mr. 
Taira so highly appreciates both.” 

“I must go now dear; good-bye,” and he 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


75 


bends to touch with his lips the fair forehead 
of his beloved granddaughter who, stroking his 
long white beard, gazes affectionately into his 
face. She wishes he would tell her all his 
secrets. But no ; he is not yet read) . 

Professor Busbey and Taira find Mr. Clancy 
Pedew the most affable as well as one of the 
most busy of men. Taira learns from various 
references made in the conversation, that 
Pedew, notwithstanding his monstrous duties, 
is often beguiled into making after-dinner 
speeches and is very famous for that particular 
faculty. 

In the course of felicitous remarks. Professor 
Busbey says : “ I hope that you will kindly give 
to my friend, Mr. Taira, in a few words — for 
we know that your time is always limited — some 
of the principal points of our railroad system 
and in what the system of to-day differs materi- 
ally from that of the past century.” 

“With pleasure,” replies Pedew. “Will not 
Mr. Taira and yourself take lunch with me? I 
will talk to you while it is being served.” 

They assent to this pleasant proposition, and, 
being seated soon after in a cheerful corner of 
an aristocratic club, listen with the deepest 
interest to Pedew’s flowing talk. 

“ Improvements in railroads have been as 


^6 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


great as in air-ships. The culminating point of 
absurdity of unproductive weight hauled was 
reached in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, when, with a locomotive and four sleeping 
cars, the dead weight per passenger, carried, 
average load, was about 9,400 pounds, or nearly 
five tons per passenger. When dining and 
luggage cars were added, it frequently exceeded 
six tons per passenger. A train composed of 
a locomotive, one sleeper and three day cars, 
had a dead weight of about 3,700 pounds per 
passenger. Locomotives of 100 tons were in 
use, and the wear and tear on the material and 
road beds were enormous. 

“ Frightful accidents with great loss of life 
were of frequent occurrence, caused by the 
spreading of the rails, breaking of bridges, or 
similar giving way of material, resulting from 
the terrible strain of this immense weight going 
at high speed. 

“ The new railroad systems and aluminum 
have metamorphosed all this as new systems 
and aluminum have permitted the successful 
construction of air-ships. The dead weight of 
a train in proportion to the number of passen- 
gers carried has been reduced from four and 
five tons per passenger, to about two hundred 
pounds per passenger. For through passenger 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


77 


and express traffic the lines of the roads have 
been straightened until they form nearly air 
lines. Grade crossings are suppressed. All 
crossings of whatever nature pass over or under 
the other lines through viaducts or tunnels. 

“ The roads are of two systems. First the 
Aqua Pneumatic Tube roads, on which the cars 
are suspended from rails and moved at high 
speed through great pneumatic tubes. Second, 
the Open Aerial Electric roads, on which run 
light cars which are suspended from single 
wheels running on a top rail. They are drawn 
by rotary electric motors. The wheels are held 
to the rail by strong and sure safety contriv- 
ances. The roads being comparatively straight, 
with no surface crossings, the speed of the 
trains is limited mainly by the resistance of the 
air and the degrees of avoidance of friction 
and heating of materials. They generally attain 
a speed of from one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred miles per hour. 

Passenger pneumatic trains, without wheels, 
suspended from and sliding on a single steel 
rail topped with water, are now sent through 
immense pneumatic tubes, composed of glass 
and other materials, at a speed of 300 miles per 
hour. Express matter and mails are often sent 
at a speed of 500 miles per hour. The speed is 


78 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


only limited by the ability to conirol the train. 
On both systems the cars are suspended from a 
single overhead rail — on the one they slide on 
water, on the other they roll on wheels. 

“ Wheels are not used on the aqua pneumatic 
lines, as the great speed at which the trains 
move would cause friction and heating. On 
these lines cars are suspended from shoes fitted 
to and sliding on an overhead rail, and they are 
raised from it when in motion, by water under 
hydraulic pressure, being forced between the 
shoes and the rail, raising the shoes off from the 
rail, so that they repose upon a bed of water 
upon which they slide. By turning off the water 
the shoes become the best of brakes. The 
motive power for the hydraulic pressure, re- 
quired for forcing the water under the shoes, is 
electricity, in part generated by the moving 
train in the tube, and the water is taken up by 
the moving train as it is wanted, by a tube so 
fitted that the great velocity of the train gives it 
nearly the pressure required. 

“To move the trains, slides are arranged in 
the front and rear ends of cars, which slides fit 
and close the tube; then the air is exhausted 
from the tube in front of the train and com- 
pressed-air is let in behind it. Slides in the 
tube open and close sections of it automatically 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


79 


as the train passes through ; they also turn off 
the compressed air from the passed section, and 
let it in at the next section. Thus the train 
can be moved at almost any desired velocity up 
to that of a musket ball. With this system 
there are no bearings to heat, for they are on 
water. There is no rushing through the air, for 
the air moves with the train ; there are no 
shocks and no jars against the air cushions, and 
the occupants of the cars find themselves nearly 
as quiet as in a drawing-room at home. The 
same cars are adapted to and are used at will 
on both systems of roads. They are readily 
detached from one system of trucks and sus- 
pended to the other system. Fhey are exceed- 
ingly strong and light. They are cigar-shaped, 
and constructed of aluminum and steel, and 
must be able to resist the atmospheric pressure 
caused by a velocity of two hundred miles per 
hour, on the open road. 

On the open aerial electric roads the cars 
are suspended from light, single wheels, which 
run on an elevated overhead rail. ITese im- 
mense wheels of ten feet in diameter are lield 
to their rail by an arrangement of top and bot- 
tom rails and guides, and other safetv con triv- 
ances, so that it is impossible for them to jump 
or leave their metals. The motors are also held 


8o 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


and guided in their places from all sides by 
wheels and simple, but strong, safety contriv- 
ances. The tires of the wheels are of a com- 
position of elastic materials, so that they run 
smoothly, almost without noise, and with 
scarcely any perceptible jar or motion to the 
occupants of the suspended car. The composi- 
tion of these tires also furnishes the necessary 
friction for the traction required of the locomo-r 
tives, without requiring much unnecessary 
weight. The cars of the pneumatic-tube system 
are unhooked from their rails and are suspended 
to the rail of the aerial system, and vice versa, 
without disturbing the occupants. The opera- 
ting mechanism is under control of the train- 
dispatcher, as well as of that of the engineer on 
the train ; either can stop a train at will, and 
both are in constant electrical communication. 
The old pounding and swaying of the enormous 
locomotives and heavy cars set up edgewise, on 
narrow-gauge roads, with the accompanying 
frightful accidents, are quite done away with 
now. 

“ The motive powers used are electricity and 
compressed air. The electricity, to a large ex- 
tent, is generated and taken from the air by the 
moving trains ; and the balance from a wire. 
All the material is light and exceedingly strong^ 


A CENTURY ON WARD. 8f 

and everything is shaped and formed with a view 
to offer the least possible resistance to the air. 

“ These trains, though light, require high 
motive power to force them through the air. 
The great wheels, ten feet in diameter, the 
nearly straight roads, with no grade crossings, 
and the impossibility of the wheels leaving their 
roadway, the constant communication of the 
dispatcher with the train, render a high rate of 
speed possible, and almost absolutely safe, much 
safer, in fact, than was a speed of sixty miles 
per hour on the old roads. 

“ The speed of the trains by the open elevated 
system is limited by the resistance of the air 
and the heating of bearings. They do not run 
as fast as those of the aqua pneumatic-tube 
system, where these limiting conditions do not 
exist, only making one hundred and fifty miles 
per hour, or, with favorable winds, two hundred 
miles per hour, by the open elevated system, 
against three hundred miles and five hundred 
miles per hour by the aqua pneumatic-tube 
system. 

'‘The expenses of operating under the im- 
proved aerial electric and the aqua pneumatic- 
tube system of the aluminum age are but a 
fraction of what they were a century back in 
the iron age. 


82 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“ Fhe outlying villages are connected with 
the main lines of railroads by pneumatic tube, 
and small aerial electric roads, air-ship lines, 
local narrow gauge surface roads, as well as 
trains drawn by locomotives running on the sur- 
face of ordinary carriage roads without rails. 
All carriage roads are now smoothly macada- 
mized. Electric motor tricycles ply over them 
doing light express and passenger service. 
These new systems have permitted ameliora- 
tions in the size and shape of cars. Many more 
people now have their own private cars than 
formerly, for these cars are not necessarily 
costly, and the hauling is very cheap. They 
often fit them up and use them for summer 
houses, and in warm climates, they are so used 
during both summer and winter. Families or 
parties select a summer location wherever their 
tastes lead, or their fancies suggest, fit up their 
cars, and they are swiftly and cheaply carried 
to their destination. There the cars are un- 
hooked from the train trucks, placed on wagons 
(they are so light that a pair of horses can read- 
ily draw one of them) and are then moved to 
the desired spot, be it by the mountain, stream, 
or the lake where the trout hide, or the forest 
nook, or the sea beach, or the fashionable club 
where social gaities reign, and where, if desired, 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 85 

meals may be obtained at the clubhouse. 
Traveling at will they are yet always at home, 
in their own houses with their own favorite 
books and surroundings and without the cares 
incident to packing and unpacking on the way. 

'' The light aluminum and steel car and the 
Aerial Electric and Aqua Pneumatic systems of 
railroads, with the great speed attained, have 
metamorphosed travel and revolutionized the 
world, its commerce, its values, and the manner 
of living of the masses. 

'' The time from New York to San F rancisco,, 
via the limited passenger pneumatic express, is 
now eleven hours ; the fare fifteen dollars, or 
a aia&«^ftds£as^-half cent.f per mile. The mails 
come through in seven hours. 

'' New York now receives tropical fruits and 
flowers from Florida in three hours, and fresh 
milk and cream from Ohio in one hour. 

'' This is a wonderful country. I am dazed 
by the consideration of its vast accomplishments. 
If in the year 1993 it is so prosperous, what 
may not the future hold for it ? ” 

'' I suppose the railroads are regarded in a 
sense as national inter-state highways.” 

‘"Yes,” answered Mr. Pedew, ‘‘they are all 
organized under the general United States rail- 
road law. They are no longer considered as 


84 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


enemies of public welfare to be condemned and 
plucked by every jury. Their carrying rates 
are fixed in conjunction with the United States 
railroad commission, and cannot be more than 
is sufficient to pay a liberal rate of interest upon 
the legitimate cost of their construction and 
operation, usually about two per cent, more 
than the average rates of interest. The old 
railroads have all surrendered their charters and 
have organized under the new law. New rail- 
roads may not be built without consent of the 
commission. I'his prevents needless paralleling 
of lines. In many cases the government owns 
the roadbeds, but they are rented to and 
operated by private corporations. Government 
management of railroads and of industrial enter- 
prises in general, has not proved to be advan- 
tageous, and has been abandoned. 

“ And now,” says Pedew a little later, “ I beg 
you to excuse me. In addition to other duties 
1 have a banquet speech to prepare for to-night. 
By presenting this card to our railway officials 
they will extend to you all courtesies, and give 
you further information if desired.” 

With profuse thanks the professor and Taira 
say adieu. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


85 


CHAPTER VII. 

Taira and lolas have gone out again to a 
great air-ship station, where Taira wishes to • 
study our system of aerial navigation. Fhe 
ofificials, from deference to the professor and 
lolas, gave him all the attention and informa- 
tion possible. 

Taira made the following notes, which he 
completed and forwarded to his government 
that evening: Air-ships are without balloons. 
They are areoplanes, with light, powerful motors, 
and are constructed of steel and aluminum, very 
strong and exceedingly light, and so built as to 
offer the least possible resistance to the air. 
Their strength must be sufficient to resist the 
pressure of a gale of 100 miles an hour. They 
are raised and propelled by air-screws, and great 
sail wings, mostly worked by stored electricity 
or that received from connections with trolley 
wires. Their movements are guided by sail- 
rudders and fins, and their (light is as easily 
directed as the flight of a bird. They go to the 
tops of and over mountains, where railways would 


86 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


be impracticable. This has made available for 
residences the most lovely and picturesque sites, 
places that were heretofore inaccessible. When 
storage batteries are used, they go where they 
will, requiring no continuous connection with 
the earth. Enormous parachutes, working 
automatically as well as at will, and opening 
. whenever the ship falls rapidly, insure safe 
descent in case of accident, but the great fan 
and sail-screws, together with the rudder which 
gives the incline, control the downward as well 
as the upward movement of the ship, so that 
she floats or descends as gently as a falling leaf. 
The great speed that enthusiasts predicted for 
air-ships, before their actual trial, has not gen- 
erally been attained with safety, but it remains 
about the same as that of the old-time, fast rail- 
way trains, from fifty to ninety miles an hour, 
according to the wind. The resistance pf the 
air becomes too great for safety of the ship at 
higher velocity, unless the wind is favorable. 
But the direct lines taken, as the bird flies, and 
the few stops between points far distant, greatly 
shorten the time compared with*that of the old 
railway trains. For instance, the Fast Express 
Air-Ships make but two stops, Chicago and 
Denver, between New York and San Francisco, 
the average time required being forty-eight 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


87 


hours. Arrangements are made for replenishing 
the electric store when necessary from connec- 
tions with trolley ground wires while under way 
at 1,000 feet elevation. When the wind is fa- 
vorable, sails are spread, the propeller keeps the 
ship on to the wind, like an ice-boat, and a speed 
of ninety miles an hour is sometimes attained 
and held for long distances. These air-ships do 
not cross the ocean regularly. The necessity 
of stopping in cases of accidents, or severe 
weather, makes navigation for long distances 
over large bodies of water not only unsafe but 
at times impossible. 

Having limited buoyancy and lifting power, 
they cannot well carry accommodations for 
cooking or sleeping. If the ship should by 
accident to its propeller lose its motive power 
while going at a high rate of speed, the rudder 
alone without the use of the parachutes directs 
the ship as it glides through the air, until its 
velocity is lost, and inclines its course to the 
earth as gently as the descent of a dove. 

'' The regular lines of air-ships keep a con- 
tinuous connection with a trolley surface-wire. 
This is done at a thousand feet elevation, more 
or less. It gives them any desired power, and 
they are relieved of the weight of motors and 
storage batteries. 


88 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


“ These ships have a greater velocity, greater 
lifting and carrying power, than those which use 
strong batteries, and they can face any ordinary 
gale, but they can only follow regular lines. 

“ Air-ships have not generally absorbed rail- 
way traffic as many supposed they would do. 
They go where railways cannot go, and, requir- 
ing no expensive roadbeds or plants, they can 
be run anywhere, at any time, where railroads 
would not pay. In general use, they are of the 
nature of expensive toys or sailing yachts. 
Their carrying power is limited. Their velocity 
is low as compared with that of the aerial elec- 
tric and pneumatic railroad trains, being from 
sixty to ninety miles per hour against the one 
hundred and fifty and three hundred miles per 
hour of the trains. 

“ Aluminum and new systems, and new 
motors and motive powers, have as completely 
metamorphosed railroading as they have air- 
ships, and a ton’s weight can be moved more 
cheaply and more rapidly over a smooth, almost 
frictionless roadbed, with the little dead weight 
now required, than it can be raised bodily and 
propelled through the air, so that most of the 
freight business, as well as most of the passen- 
ger traffic, is still done on the surface roads 
wherever they run.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 89 

“H ow do the ocean ships of to-day compare 
with those of the past century?” asks Taira. 

'' They have been metamorphosed as com- 
pletely as railroads and balloons,” says the pro- 
fessor. From the huge deep monster, burn- 
ing three and four hundred tons of coal in 
twenty-four hours, developing a speed of from 
twenty to twenty-five knots per hour, has been 
evolved the light, shallow aerial electric boat, 
carrying but a few hundred pounds of fuel for 
a trip across, and running over the surface of a 
summer sea at the rate of one hundred miles an 
hour. These boats are so constructed, that, 
under great speed, they slide up and on to the 
water and glide over the surface of it, instead 
of cutting through and displacing it. There is 
consequently but little resistance from the water, 
not as much as from the air, and the draught, 
and the consequent resistance from it, dimin- 
ishes as the speed is increased. Up to lOO 
miles per hour, the speed is only limited by the 
requisites of control and safety. The resistance 
of the air precludes higher speed. The boats 
are so constructed as to be able to take water 
ballast at will, and become deep-draught in 
order to secure safety in tempestuous weather. 
As deep-draught boats in rough seas, their 
speed becomes reduced to twenty knots per 


90 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


hour, or even less. The motive power employed 
is electricity and compressed air, furnished by 
light powerful engines run by explosives of such 
a nature that a few hundred pounds of them 
suffice to furnish power for one voyage across 
the ocean. The power derived from the fric- 
tion of the water, the motion of the ship, the 
resistance of the atmosphere, the winds, are all 
carefully utilized to generate electricity so that 
but a minimum of force is lost. The old 
method of propulsion by screws has been re- 
placed by the more effective and economic 
methods of propulsion by air and water under 
hydraulic pressure forced through jDipes against 
the outside water. The great space formerly 
required to carry fuel on the old boats, is now 
used for freight and other purposes, and the 
boats are run as light as is consistent with safety, 
according to the conditions of the sea. When 
high speed is attained, great fan-like air screws 
and strong ship sails are arranged and operated 
at proper angles on the boat in such a manner 
as to keep it upright and insure safety. Under 
great velocity these sails are set at such an 
angle that they partially lift the ship from the 
water and make of it, to a certain degree, an 
air-ship. In the season, when moderate seas 
prevail, these boats usually make the crossing 


\ 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


91 


from Long Island or New Foiindland to Ireland 
in from fifteen to twenty hours, but in bad 
weather the time may be much prolonged. If 
the weather be fine, a person may now go to 
Europe for a day’s pleasure or business and 
return all in the space of three days.” 

'‘You have given me much valuable informa- 
tion,” says Taira, as they walk along slowly, 
arm in arm, and pursue their conversation. “ I 
would like by and by to study into the farming 
interests of America.” 

" Some day I will take you to one of our 
large farms,” replies the professor, " I will show 
you a perfect model in the agricultural world.” 

" And among the things that I have noted 
down to ask you about to-day,” says Taira, re- 
ferring to his little book, “ is the use and abuse 
of liquor.” 

" In this matter we have applied the prin- 
ciples of all liberty and progress, the principles 
of individual freedom and of personal responsi- 
bility. 

" If a man gets intoxicated he is locked up, 
and treated for it. The wine merchant who 
sold him the liquor presumably transgressed no 
right in so doing, and therefore he should not 
be blamed. The sale of beer, wines, and liquors 
is unrestricted, save by the rules governing all 


92 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


commerce. They are sold all day and all night, 
and every day in the year, and yet an intoxi- 
cated person is rarely seen. The wine merchant 
has a right equal to that of any other merchant 
to sell his goods, provided they are pure and as 
represented. He commits no breach of the 
peace in carrying on' his commerce. The man 
who buys and drinks his goods, does not in so 
doing necessarily interfere with the rights or 
liberty of any one else. If he gets intoxicated 
and breaks the peace, he infringes the rights of 
society, and should be locked up and punished, 
and not the wine seller, who has infringed no 
right. 

‘'Under this system, if a person is a con- 
firmed inebriate and cannot be cured, he is 
liable to be locked up all his life, and so not 
allowed to perpetuate a race of probable 
drunkards, nor to entail probable mental weak- 
ness. With these examples before them, young 
people are not likely to abuse instead of to use 
wines. 

“ This principle was applied and worked 
effectively in many European cities a century 
back. Where there was free sale of beer, wines, 
and liquors, coupled with a full and just per- 
sonal responsibility of the consumer for his own 
conduct, resulting from the use of them, there 


V 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


93 


was also the least intoxication among the people, 
and the least abuse of them. 

“ What became of the silver question and bi- 
metalism, of which our books speak ?” asks 
Taira. 

“All payments are due in gold, unless other- 
wise specified,” answers the professor. “ Simple 
equity settled that a century back. We coined 
and made silver free and the acceptance or re- 
fusal of it free, and the question was never 
revived. In principle, those who wished to do 
so had a right to use silver for money, or to use 
copper or iron, or wheat or other products for 
money, wherever they could get other people to 
knowingly and willingly accept them as such. 
In principle, those who did not wish to accept 
silver or these products as money could not be 
made to do so. The injustice proposed by the 
owners of silver mines was that other people 
(the government) should be made to guarantee 
the price of their products (silver), and these 
other people forced to accept them as money, 
and that these other people should be forced to 
make good all depreciation in the price of these 
silver men’s products. 

“ The farmer had an equal right to demand 
that other people (the government and the 
silver men) should be made to guarantee the 


94 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR. 


price of his products (wheat, corn, oats, etc.), 
and forced to accept them as money and make 
good all their depreciation in price. Men are 
free to mine and use silver, or to produce and 
use agricultural products as they will. Other 
men are now free to refuse or accept them as 
they will.’’ 

After all,” says Taira, ‘‘the silver men and 
the farmers, if they made these demands, were 
justified, because they were not asking for dif- 
ferent or higher subsidies than those the gov- 
ernment had accorded to manufacturers and 
other producers (tin mine owners and sugar 
trusts, for instance), in the shape of unjust 
tariff regulations, and which subsidies the silver 
men and the farmers were obliged to pay, while 
getting no subsidies for the most of their own 
products.” 

“ If manufacturers and sugar raisers were 
protected, and if American tin was protected 
from the pauper tin of Europe, so should silver 
have been protected from the influx of insiduous 
European gold, and the farmer’s wheat and the 
planter’s cotton subsidized.” 

“True,” says the professor. “But we also 
abolished all these unjust measures long ago.” 

On his return home, Kala enters the room in 
which the professor is sitting. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


95 


The lady is awake and is troubled about 
something,” she says. 

Go to her, love,” the professor says to Isis, 
'‘and be gentle with her. Oh, I know you will 
— you always are — but never had any one such 
need of your kindness as she.” 

“ It is a pity that she did not die,” says Isis. 
" She will suffer so terribly. Surely she must 
go mad over this.” 

" I pray it may not be,” says the professor, 
"but, Isis, we will have to teach her how to 
live. If she were an inhabitant of Mars she 
could scarcely find a greater change in her sur- 
roundings.” 

" Do you intend that she shall live with us, 
grandfather?” asks Isis. 

" Of course,” replies the professor. " Oh, you 
will like her, Isis, she will be a pleasant com- 
panion.” 

Isis is not so sure of this, but the professor is 
master of his house, of course, and if he choose 
that this should be, she can do nothing about it. 
And then she is sorry for the poor girl, so very 
sorry, and she determines to do her best to com- 
fort her, to instruct, and to fit her for the new life. 

" Never fear, grandfather,” replies Isis, has- 
tening on her way, " never fear.” 

In the drawing-room she finds the girl who is 


96 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


the object of so much solicitude, sitting upon 
the lounge on which she had slumbered, with a 
dazed and troubled air. She is extremely pretty 
in what Isis thinks a childish and doll-like 
fashion, and she puts out her pretty hands as 
she approaches. 

“ I am so glad to see some one who can tell 
me where I am and what has happened,” she 
says, “ I cannot remember anything. What has 
happened? How came I here? Why did they 
not take me home ? I must have been here all 
night. This is not mine, this white silk robe. 
I do not see my clothes — where are they ? Have 
I been very ill, or out of my mind ? Where is 
Frank? Tell me that first.” 

“Oh! I do not know,” says Isis sorrowfully, 
“ I am afraid no one can tell you that.” 

“ Why — what can you mean ?” asks the girl, 
“ My betrothed husband to whom I am to be 
married in a few weeks, is the person I am 
speaking of.” 

Isis looked at Kala for help; she can think of 
nothing to say. 

“ Why do you exchange glances ?” cries the 
girl. “ You seem to pity me ! Oh ! tell me 
what has happened ! ” 

“ I am afraid you cannot bear it,” sighs Isis. 

“ If it is anything very dreadful, I am sure I 


V 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


97 


cannot!” the girl replies, ‘'and your face tells 
me that it is.” 

“Will you tell me what to call you?” Isis 
asks her. 

“ Oh yes, dear,” replies the girl, “ you are so 
kind to me — so pitiful. You are trying to pre- 
pare me for some frightful blow, I see that. Call 
me Grace, my whole name is Grace Malcom.” 

“ And what can you last remember ? ” queries 
Isis, twining her arm about the girl's waist. 

“ It was evening,” Grace answers, dropping 
her head on tire other’s shoulder, “ and it was 
last night, I suppose. We are to be married in 
Christmas week, unless it is something too hor- 
rible to think of that has happened.” 

“Christmas of what year?” asks Isis, her 
heart beating furiously. It is so dreadful to be 
obliged to tell this poor soul the truth. 

“Why, my dear!” exclaims the girl, “what 
a question ! 1893, of course.” 

A time of silence ensues. Kala, with eyes as 
full of mystery as those of the Sphinx, looks 
down upon the two young Europeans as they 
sit clasped in each other’s arms. 

“ Have courage, my poor darling,” Isis whis- 
pers at last. “ This is the year 1993.” 

“ What year ? ” queries Grace. 

“The year 1993,” repeats Isis. 


98 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


Grace frees herself from her arm, rises and 
retreats. 

Did you say 1993 ? ” she asks. 

Yes,” replies Isis. 

I am in a madhouse !” says Grace; “ I am 
among poor creatures who have lost their wits ! ” 
Isis listens sadly. 

‘‘There is a calendar upon the table,” she 
says. “Will you look at it?” Grace turns. 
On the exquisitely inlaid table lies, amongst 
other things, a prettily illuminated calendar. 
She looks at it, lays it down, looks at it again. 

“ ddiis is a horrible dream,” she says, “or 
else it is I who am crazy ! ” 

“ You are awake,” Isis replies. 

“ And you want me to believe that a hundred 
years have passed since,” Grace shrieks. “ Wdiile 
I have been dead, knowing nothing, they have 
all grown old and died ! They must all be 
dead ! My mother, my father, my sisters, and 
Frank, my darling Frank! Oh, why did not I 
die also! ” and she staggers toward the couch 
and falls fainting upon it. 

“The worst is over. Miss Isis,” Kala says. 
“The master can say the rest; the master, who 
is as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove,” 
and Isis bursts into a flood of tears and sobs as 
if her heart would break. 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 


99 


CHAPTER VIII. 

After long weeks have passed in which the 
kindly people of the twentieth century have 
nursed the waif from the shores of the nine- 
teenth back to life, the time comes when she 
accepts what has happened to her as one must 
perforce accept the tragedies of life, and when 
at last she is to dress and join the family at 
table. 

Isis and Kala are her attiring maids. Isis has 
ordered a lovely wardrobe for her. The joy of 
being dressed well is as strong in the feminine 
heart as it ever was, and she hopes that her 
guest may find some comfort in becoming cos- 
tumes after a while. 

Now in this day something that much resem- 
bles the Greek costume has been adopted, and 
when Grace looks upon the robes prepared for 
her she utters a little cry. 

''My dear,” she says, "are these the latest 
styles? There were some aesthetic ladies when 
I went to sleep — but we thought them amusing, 
and I like a nice little waist and everything 


lOO 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


trim. I shall feel like — I scarcely know what, 
almost indecent in these. But perhaps when I 
get my corsets on 

“ What are they?” asks Isis. 

“You don’t wear them?” Grace asks, “but 
I am sure I could not go without them.” 

“ What are they?” Isis asks again. 

“ I can hardly describe them ; they lace up 
and make one snug,” says Grace. 

“ Lace up ! oh, they are what I took for the 
instrument of torture,” cries Isis. “ I thought 
they had been putting you to some torture, 
dearest. Did you wear them willingly?-” 

“ Our corsets — why you could not get a 
decent fit without one,” Grace replies. 

“ How could you bear them ?” asks Isis. 

“ They do hurt a little,” says Grace, “ but 
that is better than being a perfect fright — 
althouofh I do not need them as much as some 
girls. I have only eighteen inches belt. Still 
I want to keep my figure.” 

Eighteen inches ! ” gasps Isis. 

It is without corsets or heels to her shoes 
that Grace at last appears at the family table, 
where the professor greets her most kindly. 
Everything is so strange and new that the 
pretty creature grows wide-eyed with astonish- 
ment. '‘You do not dress at all as we used,” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


lOI 


she says to the professor. ''You are all like 
pictures or statues, or people dressed for an 
opera. There was an opera by Gilbert and 
Sullivan called ' Patience,’ in which such cos- 
tumes were worn.” 

" My dear,” says the professor, beaming upon 
her, "we. understand physiology better than we 
did a hundred years ago, when you used to 
pinch your little waists and wear shoes and 
gloves that impeded the circulation. You looked 
very lovely ; we thought you charming ; but we 
were all wrong.” 

" Physiology and biology are grandpapa’s 
special hobbies, you must know,” says Isis 
smiling. 

"They are hobbies worthy of any man’s rid- 
ing,” he remarks. 

A little, silver-voiced bell at the end of the 
room calls everyone’s attention to the fact that 
a number of letters are dropping into a pretty 
basket which hangs below a little slide set in 
the wall. Kala gathers them up at once and 
lays several at each plate. 

" This is the way our letters come to us now, 
sent by pneumatic tubes straight from the post- 
office,” says Isis. 

" How curious,” the girl cries. Then she 
begins to Aveep. 


102 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


“ Frank wrote to me so often,” she says 
amidst her tears. “ Ah ! he will never write to 
me again.” 

“How can you be sure of that?” says the 
professor. 

“The wonders we know of are so great,” he 
adds hastily, “ that there may be still others of 
which we know nothing.” 

“ Oh, no ! I am at least in my right senses, 
though I have had so terrible a misfortune, and 
it is so hard to bear — so very hard.” She hides 
her face in her handkerchief, and in order not 
to trouble her, Isis opens her letter. As she 
does so, she gives a little cry. 

“ I am so glad ! ” she says. “ Electra is com- 
ing.” lolas looks as though he also were pleased 
with the news. 

“ Electra? ” replies Grace, “ what a curious 
name.” 

“ She was my chum at college,” says Isis. “ I 
simply adore her, and she loves me beyond ex- 
pression. When I graduated ” 

“ With honors,” interrupted the professor, 
“ and we were very proud of her, I assure you.” 
Isis smiles and goes on : 

“ When we graduated on the same day — 
Electra and I — we felt as if we could hardly 
bear to part from each other. But her mother 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 103 

is going to let her come to us, and we shall be 
so happy ! ” 

“ Schoolgirls used to make friendships of 
that sort,” Grace says, but at college generally 
they did not form them. You see, there was 
generally some misunderstanding or other.” 

“About what?” asks Isis. 

“Well,” replies Grace, “ usually it was caused 
by some young men students.” Isis looks at 
her grandfather in mute inquiry. 

“ When you went to sleep, my dear,” he says, 
“we were just succeeding in our efforts to have 
both sexes educated alike and in the same col- 
leges. We gained our point. The time came 
when Primary and Secondary School education 
was compulsory, and when girls and boys studied 
together. We thought it very fine for some 
years, but at last we became aware that this 
method was not the best. 

“ Now, our system is this. Education is 
equal and free. The schools for girls and the 
schools for boys are quite apart, and parents 
scarcely permit their daughters to meet young 
men until they have graduated from the high 
schools. Co-education exists in universities 
only. The result of this has been good. Men 
find girls not only good and charming creatures, 
with whom they fall in love, but companions, 


104 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


who can converse intelligently on all subjects — 
real helpmeets and partners. 

‘‘ Never had woman so much honor in the 
world, never were her responsibilities greater, 
never was she so physically perfect. But you 
will see some of our young men soon — those 
who graduated about the same time as lolas and 
Isis, and you can judge them yourself — Darwin 
Hall and Spencer Gray. Darwin Hall was left 
an orphan, with only the State insurance for his 
heritage. He was reared and educated in one 
of the State homes and schools. He graduated 
in medicine from the State professional school, 
and has distinguished himself in his practice, 
lolas, Spencer, and Darwin followed the Sec- 
ondary School classes together — lolas and 
Spencer have their degrees in philosophy from 
the State University, and, possessing large 
wealth, it leaves them free to devote themselves 
to the public interests. They have already won 
distinction as economists and sociologists. 

“They are pleasant young men,” says the 
professor, with a little sigh, “ handsome also — 
Spencer particularly.” 

“ But Darwin is the best fellow, grandfather,” 
says lolas, “ the best by far.” 

“ Ah me ! ” says Grace, shrugging her shoul- 
ders with a sigh. “Your college education has 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 105 

given you useful scientific facts. It has trained 
your minds, cultivated your reason, and broad- 
ened your horizon. It has taught you the phi- 
losophy of life. 

'' And poor little I ! with only my old Vassar 
classics and training ! I shall be the dunce of 
the company. I was taught a little Greek and 
Latin, languages which have proved their unfit- 
ness by perishing from use ; some history with 
but little truth, a great deal of somebody’s evi- 
dences of Christianity and a religion which is 
now to you mythology, a few accomplishments, 
but almost nothing of the laws of the universe 
and of the environment which controls me, and 
subject to which I must live.” 

'' To be sure we waste no time on dead lan- 
guages now,” says Isis. '‘We read what is of 
value in the translations. Of course some 
students of the classics learn them, but they are 
made of minor importance. But in us you have 
friends. We have all promised to help you, and 
it is our duty, as well as our pleasure, to in- 
struct you as far as we are able in all that may 
prove of value to you.” 

"At college,” says Isis, speaking for the first 
time, " it is true that we are made conversant 
with a wide range of scientific and philosophical 
facts and deductions, and we are prepared for a 


io6 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

more extended life research along right lines in 
every direction, but we also realize that we are 
as yet only on the threshold of all knowledge 
and that life itself is a school. The great li- 
brary of experience lies before us. The books 
of nature are at hand and we begin to study.” 

Grace looks a little frightened. “ It is school 
always then ? ” she says. 

“ Exactly,” answers the professor. 

Now the party rise from table. Kala touches 
a bell which calls the caterer’s men, who take 
away the dishes and table linen. 

“You see,” says Isis, taking Grace’s arm, 
“ that our house is now in perfect order. While 
we are at table the professional cleaners come 
in and arrange everything. Grandfather has 
told me that you will have very much to learn, 
and that I must explain to you. How was it in 
your former life?” 

“ Don’t speak to me as if I were a ghost, 
please!” cries Grace. “Say, before I went to 
sleep.” 

“ Yes, dear, forgive me,” says Isis. 

“ Well people lived according to their means,” 
says Grace, “ we had poor servants who were 
always growing dissatisfied and leaving their 
places, or else we found them incapable and dis- 
missed them. Dearest mamma said that they 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


107 


were the plagues of her life/’ Here she wipes 
a tear away. '' Oh, my dear lost home ! ” she 
sighs. 

I must grow used to all this,” she adds 
bravely ; '' I will go on. The servants were 
always at work in the kitchen, in the laundry. 
The mistress also had a great deal to do. A 
housekeeper could never dismiss her house from 
her mind. Therefore, many people went to 
hotels and boarding-houses. Woman’s work 
was never done before I took my sleep.” 

'' It is not so now,” says Isis. '' I have heard 
grandpa say that the servant question was a 
serious one at the time.” 

Through more equal education,” continues 
Isis, ‘'and more equal mental and physical race 
development in the upward phases of evolution, 
men of the same race became more nearly equals. 
Class lines became more and more obliterated, 
until people became unwilling to wear the badge 
of servitude and became body or house servants 
of their race equals. 

“We finally realized this, and our servants 
were taken from inferior races. The colored 
races were educated and improved until they 
became excellent and willing servants, so also 
the Chinese and latterly the Hindoos, who are 
willing and contented in our service. Now we 


io8 


SHAjDOIVS before ; OR, 


rarely have house or body servants taken from 
our race equals.” 

'' The working people now come to us from 
the great bureaus. Most of the cares of house- 
keeping are undertaken, and the labor is per- 
formed by these bureaus. Our food is cooked 
and served, our linen carried away, washed, and 
returned by them. We have stuffs which we 
use for many things which, though beautiful, 
are so cheap that we simply throw them away 
when they are soiled, and they are burned, as is 
all waste nowadays.” 

'' Like the Japanese napkins used at picnics,” 
says Grace. 

'' Our houses are lighted, heated, and cooled, 
and our elevators are run by electricity and 
chemicals,” says Isis. This does away with 
much dust and dirt. We have only to set the 
automatic regulator at the desired degree of 
temperature for summer and for winter. The 
walls of our houses are hollow and as near as 
possible non-conductors of heat, rendering them 
less sensible to outside influences. Our audi- 
torium has telephonic communication with the 
opera, the theatres, and with the lecture-halls, 
so that we listen to any of them at will, and we 
can also see the stage and the actors reproduced 
when we desire.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


109 

‘'It is as beautiful as a dream of some fairy 
life,” says Grace, “but it is saddened by the 
thought of the poor farmers and other laborers 
leading weary lives in dull, hopeless, and never- 
ending drudgery.” 

“Not so,” says Isis. “You speak of the 
past. Now even the farmers as well as artisans 
live in village communities which are centres of 
the farms outlying around them. They have 
the advantages which accrue from co-operation 
and division of work in the same way that we 
who live in cities have them, only naturally in a 
little less degree, — in fact they have the com- 
forts less a few of the luxuries.” 

“I remember,” says Grace, “that papa said, 
that for a long time the earnings of the farmer 
had been taxed to increase the wealth of those 
engaged in manufacturing and mining pursuits. 
The farmer was forced to sell his products at 
prices which were regulated by the cheapest mar- 
ket in the world ; in Europe in competition with 
India, Russia, and Hungary, and other countries. 
The prices of his home sales were fixed by these 
markets. He was compelled to buy in the home 
market, the dearest in the world, and to pay a 
tax on his purchases of forty, eighty, and one 
hundred per cent., paying this much more than 
he could obtain the same goods for from other 


1 lO 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


merkets. This tax was levied for the benefit of 
the manufacturers and miners. The farmer 
paid this much more for what he bought, he re- 
ceived this much less for what he sold. With 
hard work and the richest soil in the world, he 
grew poorer year by year, victim of the unjust 
taxation of the manv, for the benefit of the 
few.” 

“ I have heard grandpa speak of this,” says 
Isis, “but justice and right finally reigned for 
the farmer also. When the farmers came to 
understand their position, they formed organiza- 
tions similar to the organizations of the work- 
men, the manufacturers, and the railways. The 
unjust taxes were repealed and they are now 
more prosperous and happy. The farmer has 
pressed into his service waterfalls, the sun, the 
winds, and electricity. They perform the drudg- 
ery and weary labor of the household, and plow 
and reap at his bidding. The power of wind- 
mills and waterfalls, and where these are lack- 
ing, of great sun-engines, provided with storage 
batteries, furnish electricity which is carried by 
wire to any part of the farm where it is needed, 
and to farms far distant from the sources of 
power. Chemical foods extracted directly from 
the elements take the place of grains and fur- 
nish nearly all the food that is required for the 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


Ill 


stall feeding and the wintering of stock. While 
this greatly cheapens the cost of meat and bread 
for the masses, it leaves the same margin of 
profit for the farmer. The successful farmer of 
to-day must be well educated and scientific in 
his methods. He must have a good knowledge 
of the agricultural, physical, natural, and chem- 
ical sciences. His occupations are agreeable 
and lucrative, and they are not physically more 
laborious than most other occupations requiring 
manual labor. 

His advantages in the way of leisure, and 
his opportunities for intellectual pursuits are 
superior to. those enjoyed by the majority of 
other workers.’’ 

How just ! ” exclaims Grace. 

'' The idea of organizing the farmers into vil- 
lage communities, carrying with them their cor- 
responding advantages,” says Isis, '‘was first 
started in a practical way about a century back 
by a man of broad intellect and a large heart, 
named Bookwalter, from Ohio. He was touched 
by the dreary lot of the classes of which you 
speak, and he sought to brighten their lives, not 
in the old way, by distributing charity offerings 
— which left the poor more poor, nor yet in 
building costly temples for religious teachings, 
telling them to look to another world for the 


II2 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


happiness which they ought to have in this, — 
but he worked by plain economic organization, 
applying the laws of political economy and so- 
ciology, eradicating unwise methods and cus- 
toms, replacing them by improved ones, and 
making the people the artificers of their own 
happiness, which they achieve here in this world. 
Through these methods and this economic organi- 
zation, they transmit the probabilities of equal 
or increased happiness to those that follow them. 
Charity fails to accomplish this. After much 
agitation. State governments took charge of the 
building of improved public roadways. On the 
demand of a county for a new road of an ap- 
proved system, the State, in conjunction with the 
county, assume the building of it, the State pay- 
ing half the cost of its construction. These roads 
have easy grades and are now smoothly macad- 
amized and in such condition that electric 
motor trains and electric motor bicycles pass 
over them everywhere without necessitating the 
laying of rails. They carry mails, passengers, 
and the produce of the farms, thus keeping the 
farmer in touch with the markets and with his 
fellow men without the expense of private car- 
riages.” 

“Oh, Isis,” says Grace, “in what new light 
you have made all this appear to me. Before I 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


went to sleep we girls were taught to believe 
that scientific studies were not necessary and 
that political economy especially was a cold un- 
feeling science, with which heart, church, and 
charity had little to do. And now you show it 
to be one of the most bright, beautiful, and 
necessary of factors contributing to our happi- 
ness here.'’ 

‘'Yes,” says Isis, “it is a pleasing study and 
a necessary light to intelligent and useful work. 
Through a knowledge of its laws, we are enabled 
to make the best use of material conditions. 
Happy ourselves, it is our pleasure and duty to 
endeavor to make all people happy around us. 
To accomplish the best results, we must under- 
stand the workings of physical, social, and eco- 
nomic laws. The time, the money and thought, 
love, affection, and worship that up to the pres- 
ent century were given to propitiate something 
supposed to be supernatural, outside of human- 
ity is now all given to humanity itself. Oh! 
it was a glorious epoch for poor, suffering, 
enslaved man,” continues Isis, “when the 
great army of noble intellects, who were 
priests and slaves of a superstitious theology, 
were released from a bondage which had 
dwarfed and crippled and tortured men for 
thousands of years. They for the first time 


SNA DO IV S BEFORE ; OR, 


114 

made themselves familiar with the simple scien- 
tific truths of our being, and put themselves 
more in harmony with their laws. Tenderly, 
lovingly, and kindly they devoted their hitherto 
misdirected energies to eradicating the sources 
of misery, and to the drying of tears ; their best 
thoughts were employed in devising means for 
bettering the conditions of their fellow me,n 
here in this world ; their powers were rationally 
directed to increasing the sum of human joys.’’ 

''You speak to me almost of heaven !” says 
Grace. " How I long to become familiar with 
this new world. Ah ! how all this would have 
pleased poor good mamma who had so much 
trouble, and who tried in the old way to do so 
much good.” 

Isis can see that Grace is doing her best to 
face the inevitable and that at times she finds 
herself almost powerless to do so. 

I'he fresh air may do her poor guest good, 
she thinks, and proposes a walk, to which Grace 
agrees, and they go out together. The beauti- 
ful cleanliness of the wide streets ; the fact that 
every house, though it be an apartment building, 
is separated from its neighbor ; with light, 
space, foliage and verdure around it, amazes 
Grace. 

" How quiet everything is,” she says to Isis. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


1^5 

And, indeed, she has reason to be astonished, 
for instead of the deafening turmoil of New 
York, when she last walked its streets, leaning 
on Frank’s arm, there is not even any sound of 
feet. New and curious vehicles pass down the 
roadway. None of them being drawn by horses^ 
however ; there is neither jar nor rattle. 

‘'Do you find it so very quiet?” asks Isis. 
“ I have never been used to more noise.” 

“Oh! can this really be possible?” says 
Grace, as she reads on a poster, “ Pneumatic 
Air-Line New York to Chicago, trains leave 
every hour; Time, three hours; Fare, $4.50.” 

“Yes,” says Isis, “this is the usual time and 
fare. People often go to or come from Chicago 
to breakfast, and return home the same 
evening.” 

“I realize, indeed,” says Grace, “that I live 
in a new century.” 

Isis and Grace exchange many peculiar con- 
fidences as the latter begins to ask questions, 
from hour to hour, regarding the changes that 
continually reveal themselves to her bewildered 
consciousness. In speaking of a physician, Isis 
finds herself elucidating many new facts for her 
surprised companion. 

“Dr. Darwin,” she says, “is very successful 
in his medical practice. He has a large sub- 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


ii6 

scription list, I think fifty families at about two 
hundred dollars each, or about ten thousand a 
year income.” 

How is this possible?” asks Grace. “ Doc- 
tors charge only by the visit, or for prescrip- 
tions.” 

We have a different system now,” says Isis. 
'' Advanced medical science recognizes the fact 
that its best results are obtained in using pre- 
ventive rather than curative measures ; that 
most ills may be prevented, while but few are 
cured, without leaving an injured system. So 
we now employ our medical advisers by the 
year and pay them a fixed sum for keeping us 
well. They only take as many families as they 
can properly care for. If a subscriber is ill, the 
physician does not get extra pay for his care of 
the patient, but he has to assume the extra 
work, so that it is to his interest in many ways 
to keep his subscribers well. For instance, the 
physician having the lowest sick-list and the 
lowest death-rate among his subscribers obtains 
the greatest reputation and the highest pay. 
They generally have a large hall or room in 
their houses, and they give each season to their 
professional, annual subscribers, a free course of 
medical lectures on sanitary measures and 
anthropology. They treat of hygiene and of 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 117 

physiology, with dissecting, and psychology, 
recognizing the influence of the mind in nervous 
disorders. They teach what is useful for the 
preservation of health, and the prevention of 
ills, contagious or otherwise. Competition leads 
them to do everything possible in the way of 
instructing their patients. Some of our physi« 
cians are quite famous for their courses of lec- 
tures and laboratory instruction, which they 
give to their annual subscribers and for the con- 
sequent good health in which they keep them, 
for patients, as well as doctors, must be well 
informed in the laws of physical health, if they 
are to keep well. Some obtain as high as a 
thousand dollars per annum from a single family, 
but younger and less famous men are content 
with a hundred-dollar rate of subscription.” 

''What a complete revolution,” exclaims 
Grace. " Robert Ingersoll used to say that if 
he had the control of earthly affairs, he would 
make health contagious instead of disease. I 
expect to hear you say next that rosy cheeks 
like yours are catching! You are indeed well 
named ' the blush of the rose,’ which I have 
heard several call you.” 

At this moment a cheerful voice soiinds 
behind them — the professor steps between them 
and offers an arm to each girl. 


ii8 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

'' I am glad that Isis has coaxed you out,” he 
says. ‘‘The pure air will help you. Our sani- 
tary regulations are all so perfect now, our 
drains and sewers so well regulated, that all evil 
odors are banished. The perfume of flowers 
often floats down upon us from the roof gar- 
dens.” 

Grace comments again upon the quiet. 

“ I heard you speak of the absence of loud 
sounds. Isis does not remember the time, as 
we do, when in the city streets, two who walked 
together must scream to make themselves heard 
by their companions. Lately we have discovered 
how much injury may be done to delicate nerves 
by jarring sounds, sudden crashes, clashing bells, 
shrieking whistles. This new pavement which 
deadens all sound is the result. All innovations 
come of efforts to be rid of annoyances. Listen 
— the public clocks are about to strike. They 
are all regulated at Washington, now, and no 
clock in the land, public or private, is ever much 
out of time. The public clocks have exquisite 
voices. A musician is appointed to attend to 
that.” 

At this moment the most exquisite sound is 
heard — eleven liquid notes dropped into the air. 

“ Those are the clocks,” says the professor. 

The summons of the guest at the door is a 


J CENTURY ONWARD. 119 

delightful musical trill, nothing creaks or groans. 
The steam-whistles, the creak and rattle of cars, 
are all things of the past. No one must annoy 
others by creating any unpleasant noises in the 
pursuit of his own business or pleasures.” 

“ It is delightful,” says Grace, folding her 
little hands over the professor’s arm. He smiles 
upon her very tenderly, as if this show of con- 
fidence pleased him. 

“ Do you notice how much nobler the faces 
of the crowd have become, and that there are 
no beggars, neither are there any drunkards ? 
You used to be terribly afraid of drunken men, 
Gracie.” 

“Why! How do you know that?” Grace 
cries. “ But indeed I was.” 

“ Oh, all ladies were you know,” says the 
professor. 

“ Then the prohibition people had their way ? ” 
says Grace. 

“No, indeed,” the professor replies. “On 
the contrary we all drink wines and fermented 
liquors now. Only no bad liquor can be sold, 
and nobody is idiot enough to drink too much 
of anything nowadays. And where are the 
wagons and drays, little one?” 

“ I see none,” says Grace. 

“ All that work is going on with electric 


120 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


motors and cars, we have very little cartage 
now,” says the professor. “Some of the lighter 
express work is done in flying cars.” 

“ Flying cars ! ” cries Grace. 

“ Oh yes, we navigate the air much more 
cleverly than we did the water a hundred years 
ago,” says the professor. 

Their walk is rather a long one and the pro- 
fessor explains many things to Grace, and talks 
well and at length on many subjects, but some- 
how Isis is conscious of a feeling of annoyance. 
Since her return from college she has been her 
grandfather’s constant companion. He has 
talked to her, advised her, taught her something 
whenever they were together. To-day she feels 
herself totally neglected. To be sure it is their 
duty to comfort this poor girl who has been so 
strangely left over from the last century, his as 
well as hers, but there is something more than 
duty in the old man’s manner to Grace. 

“ From the moment when she was brought 
into the house I have been of minor import- 
ance,” she says to herself, and she grows jealous 
as a baby whose mother holds a strange child 
in her arms. Isis has never experienced even 
this mild form of the emotion before, and she is 
vexed with herself, and she calls herself wicked 
and selfish and cruel, but it is all of no use. She 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


I2I 


walks silently on beside her grandfather, and he 
does not know that she has not spoken for an 
hour. After awhile she slips her hand out of his 
arm entirely, and he is not aware of it. 

e was almost as forgetful of me when he 
was busy with those fossil remains that the Rus- 
sian scientists sent him,” she says, ‘'and I was 
not in the least jealous.” 

Then she becomes conscious that fossil re- 
mains and a lady, even with such strange an- 
tecedents as those of Grace Malcolm are very 
different things. In this mood they reach home 
again, and here a delightful surprise awaits Isis. 
Kala comes running to her, with shining eyes. 

“ Miss Isis will be so glad ! ” she says, “ Miss 
Electra has come.” 

“ Glad is no word for it, Kala,” says Isis, and 
she speeds up stairs, leaving her grandfather 
to escort Grace to his study, where he has told 
her that he has much to show her, and some- 
thing to read to her. 


122 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


CHAPTER IX. 

On the following morning an invitation comes 
from the Chief of the Public Works Depart- 
ment for Taira to visit the sewers and the great 
underground network of communications. The 
professor and lolas accompany him. 

“ I should much like to see the underground 
ways,” says Grace, “only I suppose they are 
not fit or proper for a lady to visit. Papa had 
so much trouble with the gas from the sewers.” 

“ All that has changed,” says the professor, 
“ and you may come with us. Great streams of 
water flow through the sewers, and proper ven- 
tilation keeps everything nearly as sweet and as 
inoffensive as are the streets above ground.” 

They enter a main sewer at 155th street and 
after many changes emerge at Union Square, 
the professor explaining to his guest the work- 
ing of the whole system. In the evening Taira 
sends this report to the Government : 

“The sewers and subways of New York. 
Through the kindness of the Department of 
Public Works and of my most noble host. Pro- 
fessor Busbey, I was yesterday permitted to see 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


123 


these wonderful undergroundworks. It is these 
which render possible the smoothly paved, 
noiseless, and clean streets of the city. Wher- 
ever it is practicable, the main sewers are about 
eighteen feet wide by fifteen feet high, arched 
and cemented, varying in size according to 
localities and the space required. The cross 
street sewers ar^e smaller. In the centre of the 
subway is a canal about six feet wide by six feet 
deep, with oval bottom. This is filled with a 
strong current of water. Where it is more 
narrow, a tram-car is pushed along over it on 
rails laid on either side. If wider, a boat is 
drawn through. A small sewer about three feet 
wide by four and one-half feet high, also 
cemented, runs from the main sewer to each 
house. These sewers are subways in which are 
carried all water pipes, steam pipes, pneumatic 
tubes, electric and telegraph wires, and, in fact, 
all underground communications, except gas 
pipes, are carried through them. The city also 
owns, and has taken possession of the ground 
under the sidewalks clear to the buildings. 
Under each sidewalk is a subway of about ten 
feet, the clear space in which is also leased to 
companies requiring underground communica- 
tions. When a house requires a service of 
wires or pipes, they are passed through the 


124 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


sewers, and the surface of the street is not dis- 
turbed, so that they are always smooth and 
clean. This same system of sewers extends 
through the residence as well as the business 
portions of the city. They tried, and aban- 
doned as unnecessary, underground passenger 
roads, finding that the streets being relieved by 
the sewer and subway system, the surface and 
elevated roads were quite sufficient for the needs 
of the people, and were much more agreeable. 

“ Commercial Houses. The commercial 
houses doing business in heavy or bulky goods 
sell from samples, while the stocks of goods are 
arranged in clearing-houses around, on, and near 
the docks, with tracks, cars, and electric motors 
running alongside, or in covered ways through 
the centre of each building and connecting with 
the docks, and the main roads running through 
each street, so that but little or no cartage, and 
the least possible handling of goods are neces- 
sary. This system of roads is owned by the 
city. The whole island is given up to commerce, 
and its houses and communications are arranged 
to facilitate business. There is room on the 
principal streets for horses and carriages, on 
either side of the car and freight lines, but 
they are secondary and are not accorded the 
right of way or precedence over business com- 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


125 


munication. Passenger communication is amply 
provided for by the network of elevated roads, 
and on the island people are expected to use 
these instead of carriages. Bulky goods are 
generally sold at wholesale from samples in 
houses, situated in the interior of the city, but 
the orders are filled from the clearing-houses. 
No engine nor smoke is allowed in the heart of 
the city. The power required is obtained from 
wires run from electric motors, which are located 
on the outskirts of the city, and worked by 
power obtained from the tides, which also fur- 
nish all other power for the city.” 

All this information is jotted down in Taira’s 
note-book on his return to the professor’s home. 

Electra is in the room that has been allotted 
to her. A room all white and rose color, as 
that of Isis is all blue and white. Electra is 
slender, almost as slender as Grace, but taller. 
Her eyes are dark gray and her hair pale brown. 
She is by no means as beautiful as Isis, but she 
has a strange, subtle charm of her own that the 
first word or motion develops. She opens her 
arms, and Isis falls into them. 

I begin to live again !” she cries. '' Oh, how 
interminable this parting has seemed ! ” 

“ It has been long to me,” says Electra, '' and 
then I have so much to tell you.” 


126 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“And I so much to tell you,” says Isis. “ But 
have you had any lunch ? What can I do for 
you ? ” 

“ Kala took good care of me,” says Electra. 
“What a lovely room. You remembered my 
favorite color, and does it not feel nice to be 
free? I have a sensation such as a wild bird 
who has been caged for a long while must have. 
I am so glad to be done with it all — all but you, 
pet.” 

“I must say, Electra,” says Isis, “that I feel 
as if a very pleasant part of my life were over. 
I cried a little when I folded my college gown 
of black silk and my flat cap away among some 
wonderful s\\\^&n sachets full of Oriental perfume 
that Kala made me. Kala believes in evil spirits 
and thinks that these sachets will keep them 
away. Yes, I cried a little as I did over my 
dead bird, and wished that I had still another 
year before me for the winning of that roll of 
parchment with the big red seal and the solemn 
signatures upon it.” 

“ That parchment seems like a release from 
prison to me,” says Electra, “and the only re- 
gret I had for my academic cap and gown, was 
that I had been told that I looked like Portia in 
the trial scene of the ‘ Merchant of Venice,’ 
when I wore it.” 


A CENTURY O NIVA RE, 


127 


'' So you did,” assents Isis. You are of such 
an intellectual type of beauty, and Portia was 
intellectual you know.” 

I have been to a ball, Isis,” Electra says, 
apropos of nothing. Oh, it is so different, 
waltzing with real partners from what it is to 
dance with other girls. And my partner was so 
charming, — they are all nice, — but one I danced 
with most I mean. And he paid me delightful 
compliments — begged me for a rose I had in 
my belt, and said that he would keep it all his 
life. Do you believe he meant it ? Do they 
say what they really mean to us, Isis, or is it all 
flattery ? ” 

Oh ! what he said to you he must mean,’' 
Isis says, “ for I can quite understand any 
gentleman falling in love with you at first sight. 
Whether some one really meant that I was just 
the sweetest thing he ever saw, I do not know. 
It is so exaggerated. I cannot be that.” 

''You are, though,” says Electra. "Come — 
who said it ? Who is your some one ? ” 

" Who is yours? I’ll exchange confidences,” 
says Isis. " Mine is Darwin Hall.” 

"And mine,” says Electra, "is named Spen- 
cer Grey.” 

"Oh, Electra!” cries Isis, "how perfectly 
lovely ! Spencer Grey is coming to visit us. 


128 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


He went to college with lolas, and, my dear, 
he is coming, too ! ” 

“ He ? ” queries Electra, archly. 

“ Darwin Hall,” replies Isis. “ lolas and he 
were chums ! They love each other as well as 
we do. It will be a perfectly heavenly summer 
— or would be, but for the poor girl Grace.” 

“ But what girl do you mean?” asks Electra. 

“ Electra,” says Isis, “ something so strange, 
so incredible has happened here, that you would 
think me out of my mind but that I can prove 
what I say to you. You will see the poor thing 
yourself and will hear what she says, and what 
grandpapa says to her. Besides, lolas knows 
all about it. If I had not these proofs, I myself 
should think it all a bad dream, indeed I should. 
It was on grandfather’s birthday she came to 
life. When she came here she was dressed out- 
landishly, and laced up so that her figure was 
like an hour-glass in something she calls her 
‘ corsets,’ and she had long pegs at the backs of 
her shoes, and such tight gloves of kid ! Every- 
thing fell to pieces like burnt paper as we took 
it off. It was dreadful ! But grandfather said 
she was not dead, but fell into a comatose con- 
dition a hundred years ago, and he aroused her.” 

“ Oh, Isis,” cries Electra, “what are you try- 
ing to make me believe ! ” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 129 

Only the truth,” says Isis. ‘‘ He brought 
her to, and when she had had a good, long, 
natural sleep and a good cry he made me tell 
her the facts — and what year it was — and when 
she knew she had slept a century she almost 
died. She called out for her mother, for her 
sister, for some one she called Frank. Yes, 
indeed, her betrothed husband, Electra. I was 
so sorry for her, and we did all we could, but 
she was very ill, and we barely saved her life.” 

Isis ! ” Electra cries again. 

Are not we living in an age in which all 
things seem possible ?.” says Isis. '' Now she is 
well, and grandpa is simply devoted to her. She 
is to live here always ! She has no other home, 
poor girl. But it is hard ; I am nothing, simply 
nothing to grandfather. He has eyes for no 
one but this Grace Malcolm, who has been 
sleeping for a century. I found that out this 
morning. I am as nobody now,” and Isis 
brushes away a tear. 

I suppose it is because she is so great a 
curiosity,” she sighs, '' and I ought not to 
be vexed, but Eve been grandpa’s darling all 
my life. Father and mother have a large fam- 
ily, and they gave us to him for his own — lolas 
and myself. 

'' He named us, he educated us, but this- 


130 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


morning he hardly looked at me ; that resusci- 
tated girl absorbed all his attention.” 

Electra had listened in silence until now. 
She springs to her feet, her eyes blazing. 

'' Oh, Isis, my dear,” she cries, I am afraid 
that both the professor and yourself are being 
deceived. We must be very careful in this 
matter. If her story is true, we have a duty 
toward her, one which comprises all that love 
and kindness can suggest, but also, if not true, 
it is equally our duty not to allow the professor 
to be imposed upon. I am afraid that this girl 
is an adventuress.” 

'' How can that be ? ” asks Isis. Grandpapa 
knows all about such things. He rarely mis- 
takes, and every one accepts his word.” 

''The professor is a splendid old gentleman, 
dear,” Electra says, " and there can be no doubt 
he is generally right, but it is possible that this 
girl and her confederates may be deceiving him. 
It was easy enough to find some of the garments 
worn a hundred years ago, in those funny, big 
trunks they store away in country houses, or 
old curiosity shops. They dress her up, give 
her some opiate, and why — it is a plan to take 
the professor ” 

" But why?” asks Isis. 

"Why?” says Electra, "why — goosey, your 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 13 1 

grandfather is rich. He’d be a splendid catch 
for any woman. That is the plan, and he 
has fallen into the trap. She has bewitched 
him.” 

'' Can it be so ? ” asks Isis. 

I am afraid of it,” says Electra, ''and I will 
help you to unmask her. I cannot credit such 
a story.” 

" Grandpa does,” says Isis. 

"Darling,” asks Electra, "the professor is 
very old ; are you perfectly sure you have seen 
no signs of his mind beginning to weaken ? ” . 

" Not unless this is one,” says Isis, bursting 
into tears, "but really, Electra, now you place 
it before me in that light, I fear it is.” 

" Well,” says Electra, " I am convinced that 
whether the professor’s mind is all that it has 
been or not, it is strong enough still to be con- 
vinced of the truth if it is suggested to him. 
Once he sees into her plots, he will feel more 
indignation than we do. And my plan is to be 
quiet and watch, to make her betray herself. 
Surely, I, who might have become a lawyer, 
have art enough to do that. If we make no use 
of our opportunities, we might as well be in the 
benighted condition the professor tells us of as 
existing in his youth — when women were toys 
and lived principally to read novels and gossip 


132 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


or to cook and sew. Be assured, I will fathom 
this mystery.” 

“ But what if it should be true ? ” says Isis. 

“ Improbable,” answers Electra. The sum- 
mons to dinner is heard at this moment and the 
girls obey it. 

The handsome face of lolas lights up when 
he sees Electra. The professor comes forward 
with a smile. 

“ You are welcome, my dear,” he says, “ very 
welcome. The more young people we have, 
the better for our new-found treasure, this little 
woman who was dead and is alive.” 

Not a word does he say of the joy he knows 
his granddaughter must feel in meeting her 
dearest friend, and it is with a pang that Isis 
sees that he has placed Grace on his right hand, 
where she herself has always been seated 
hitherto. 

As for Electra, she greets lolas in friendly - 
fashion, but she gives Grace Malcolm the coldest 
little bow possible. 

“ She is very much alive now, I am sure,” 
she says. 

The professor fancies that she intends a com- 
pliment and smiles, but lolas looks startled. 
Isis understands her, and out of her century-old 
experience come memories, which tell Grace 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 135 

that Electra has meant to hurt her. She does 
not know what she means, however, only she 
recognizes an enemy. 

After dinner has been served, the professor 
and Taira retire to the conservatory. 

Here, embowered in flowers, with the senses 
lulled by their fragrance, they linger over little 
cups of delicious Japanese coffee and rare and 
mysterious liquors, which Taira brought with 
him as presents to his host. 

'' How smoothly the municipal government of 
this great city of 10,000,000 people seems to 
work,” says Taira, '‘as well as that of the 
country with its 300,000,000 of souls. Our books 
tell us that not long ago there was much cor- 
ruption, unjust legislation, and bad govern- 
mental administration here. In what do the 
present forms and constitutions of the general 
and municipal governments differ from the 
old?” 

"We have but little bad legislation or ad- 
ministration now,” answered the professor. 
" We had a hard struggle and the evolution of 
the good was slow, but at last the right has con- 
quered. With our old form of municipal gov- 
ernment, our cities could not have attained, 
happy and prosperous, their present vast propor- 
tions ; nor could the States have arrived at their 


34 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


present strong and harmonious, yet free, condi- 
tions. The exact limits of our national and 
State duties are to provide for national defense, 
insure personal safety and personal liberty, 
limited only by equity and justice, to maintain 
public order, to promptly administer justice, 
both civil and criminal without charge, and to 
control for good as far as may be the conditions 
on which depend the happiness of posterity. 
Any further duties which the State may assume 
are undertaken with the greatest circumspec- 
tion. Such assumption of other functions can 
only be defended on the ground that under the 
present imperfect conditions of society there 
may be some things essential to its welfare 
which can be performed better by the social 
body at large and under its supervision than by 
private organizations. Even if this assumption 
be true, past and present experience shows us 
that in deciding what these things are, govern- 
ment has more often been wrong than right, 
and, with but few exceptions, its interference 
with other matters and assumption of preroga- 
tives and duties, other than the administration 
of justice, have often worked unmixed harm. It 
follows, therefore, that the rule of the State, 
outside of its exact duties, should be more 
advisory than compulsory, and that citizens 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


135 


should support the consequences of the good 
and evil results of their own actions, their re- 
wards and penalties being in proportion to 
merit. 

Our basic principle is that the Government 
is for and by the people, not the people for the 
Government ; and that man is free to do that 
which he will, provided he infringe not the 
equal freedom of all, conditioned by the law of 
right ; that is right which is for the best inter- 
ests of one’s self, one’s family, one’s immediate 
surroundings, and for society and for the world 
at large, viewed presently, proximately, and 
ultimately. It recognizes that the law of equal 
freedom and personal responsibility, conditioned 
by the law of right, forms one of the most 
necessary conditions of human happiness. 

The laws of expediency of justice, and of 
love demand that the State shall always protect, 
and, where necessary, care for, rear, and educate 
its minors, and prepare them in their turn to 
take their places in the State. Therefore the 
State has assumed the responsibility of the rear- 
ing and education of needy children, and the 
care of its poor, needy, and helpless, as well as 
of its criminal classes. Hence, it follows that it 
recognizes and has assumed the duty which goes 
with this responsibility of controlling and re- 


136 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


ducing to a minimum the conditions from which 
are evolved these classes which fall to its 
charge. 

“ The assisted poor are divided into different 
classes : 

“ The unfortunate and worthy poor. 

“ The shiftless and lazy poor. 

“ The criminal poor. 

“ Those temporarily out of work and desiring 
employment in exchange for a home until pay- 
ing situations be procured. 

“ Each class is cared for separately and treated 
according to its merits. Worthy families may 
be assisted temporarily only, in their own homes. 
No one is permitted to suffer from want. All 
persons in more than temporary need, or with- 
out homes, are taken to the county institutions, 
where they are required to work, if able, and 
are taught trades if they remain long enough. 
They are given in exchange, a home, food, and 
coupons for clothing and for transportation, but 
no money. The transportation coupons are for 
third class, and enable the laborer to go where 
his labor is most needed, which information is 
furnished him free by the Government bureau. 
All persons desiring to work on these conditions 
are free to do so. 

“ In these county institutions employers seek 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


137 


for help. These institutions are generally self- 
supporting, and no one is refused work. The 
sick and the helpless are well cared for in the 
hospitals. In so far as the State has assumed 
the responsibility of the care of its unfortunate 
of certain classes, it has also assumed control of 
the conditions which produce these classes. 

'' Genealogical records are kept. Every person 
must have papers showing who they are and 
where they belong. Its contract marriage sys- 
tem requires parties desiring to marry, to pro- 
duce certificates of good mental and physical 
health and that they are not criminals, also cer- 
tificates that they are not assisted persons and 
that they have material means or resources suffi- 
cient to care for progeny. 

'' All workmen must insure against accidents, 
and for old age. 

This insurance is taken in private companies 
which are organized under official supervision 
and inspection. 

'‘Free public education by the nation and by 
the State is one of the things which has proved 
to be efficient and for the benefit of the country. 
But even in this we recognize the principle of 
individual freedom by not making it obligatory 
for children to attend these schools if their 
parents prefer that they study at home and they 


138 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

pass favorably the annual public examinations 
of the school boards. Fixed public institutions 
are not perfect, and, if compulsory, may arrest 
advance to higher types. The greatest human 
progress has mostly been made on lines outside 
of those of our fixed institutions. 

“ Recognizing this, we leave all possible lib- 
erty to individual action, coupled with personal 
responsibility for the same. 

“We have limited, but well-defined general. 
State, and municipal constitutions. They are 
but little more than the necessary laws, clearly 
defining their organizations, extent of powers, 
and their relations each to the other. Fixed 
institutions have often arrested the progress of 
nations. The English Government rules without 
being limited by a written, fixed constitution. 

“The general United States Government, 
with some few exceptions, has not undergone 
radical changes in its powers and organization 
within the past century, but its methods have 
changed for the better, and there is unity and 
harmony in its legislation. This has wrought 
wonderful good to the country.” 

“ How are nominations for offices now made ? ” 
asks Tiara. “We have found the manner of 
nominations to be quite as important as the 
manner of elections.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 139 

''Primaries,” answers the professor, "have 
been superseded by a method, according to 
which each citizen makes his own nominations. 
Every voter is required to make, at the time and 
place of his registration, a written nomination 
(by filling out a prepared blank) for each office 
to be voted for at the election. Nomination 
ballots, with names, must not be furnished. 
Nominations must be made, and voting must be 
done, in secret. The old Australian system, 
with slight modifications, is employed for both. 
A proposed candidate must be eligible for the 
office. 

" He must receive a number of nominating 
votes of not less than two per cent, of the total 
number of registered voters for that election. 

" He then becomes a legal candidate for the 
office. 

" The names of all persons so nominated, and 
NO OTHERS, are placed upon election ballots, 
opposite the total number of nominating votes 
received by each. At the election the voter is 
then free to make his own choice among the 
nominated candidates for office. This system 
has abolished the evils of the old primaries and 
secured good nominations. It is followed in all 
elections of whatever nature, municipal. State, 
and national. 


140 


SHADOWS BEFORE s OR, 


“ The government consists of four branches : 

“The National Council, or Advisory Depart- 
ment. 

“ The Legislative Department. 

“The Judiciary Department, which construes 
and interprets the laws. 

“ The^Executive Department. 

“ Among the new cabinet departments which 
have been created, the most important are the 
Department of Public Instruction, the Depart- 
ment of Railways and Transportation, the De- 
partment of Commerce, and the Department of 
Fine Arts. 

“ The President is elected for seven years, and 
is not re-eligible. 

“ The manner of his election has not changed. 

“ On retiring he receives a pension of $10,000 
per annum. 

“Among other duties of the President, he in- 
forms Congress of the state of the Union, and 
presents such bills for consideration as he may 
deem to be for the national interests, thus 
securing harmony and unity in legislation. 

“ With the advice and co-operation of his cabi- 
net, and after elaboration by the National Coun- 
cil, he presents projects of laws direct to the 
Legislative Department. He may present bills 
direct without the aid of the cabinet and the 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 141 

National Council. The Legislative Department 
may amend, pass, or refuse to pass any of these 
projects or bills. He has the veto power. 

“ Government bills have the precedence over 
others. The cabinet officer whose special de- 
partment any bill concerns, becomes a member 
of the National Council and of the legislative 
bodies for its elaboration and consideration. 

“ Members of the Senate must be past forty 
years of age. They are elected for seven years 
— one-seventh renewable each year. They are 
not re-eligible. The number of Senators in pro- 
portion to the population has been reduced, so 
as to keep the body smaller and more efficient. 
A number of Senators equal to one-tenth of the 
whole number elected by the States are elected 
from the country at large by the two legislative 
bodies in united session. 

“ Members of the Legislature are elected for 
four years, one-fourth renewable each year. 
They may be re-elected. 

“ The National Council is of recent creation. 
Its functions are advisory, not administrative. 
Its duties are to prepare projects of laws for the 
legislative bodies, on request of the President, 
or President and cabinet ; and on request of 
either of the legislative bodies. Also to pre- 
pare bills for the modification of laws, and for 


142 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


the repeal of obsolete or conflicting laws, to 
prepare bills concerning the relations of the 
general government toward its States and to- 
ward the United Republics of Civilized Nations, 
to prepare bills for the different States to further 
uniform national legislation and uniform legis- 
lation in all the States on matters of national 
importance. A member of the State council 
becomes a member of each of the legislative 
bodies for the consideration of any bill, pre- 
pared by the council. General State bills, 
concerning uniform State laws, may be pre- 
pared and presented to the different States 
for action. 

“ First. By the State council without request, 
but to be approved by the President when 
prepared. 

“ Second. By the State council, on request 
of the President or of both legislative bodies, 
which last form is also necessary for bills con- 
cerning the United Republics. 

“ Third. On request of the governor of any 
State, the request to be approved by the Pres- 
ident. 

“ The States may ratify, or refuse to ratify, 
such bills. 

“ The National Council is composed of one 
member from each State, appointed by the gov- 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


143 


ernor of the State. They hold office for seven ^ 
years, one-seventh renewable each year. 

The President, on coming into office, ap- 
points a number equal to one-half of the whole 
number of these, to hold office for seven years, 
or during the Presidential term. These appoint- 
ments are made without distinction of party and 
are composed equally of members chosen from 
the chairs of all the sciences, natural, physical, 
political, and economical, moral, social, and 
philosophical, to be chosen from the United 
States universities ; they must include a profes- 
sor of agriculture, and an officer from the army, 
and one from the navy. A Cabinet officer be- 
comes a member of the National Council and of 
the legislative bodies for the consideration of 
bills concerning his special department. 

Bills may be presented direct to the legis- 
lative bodies by any member thereof, without 
intervention of the State council. 

‘'Through the labors of the National and 
State councils, the National and State laws 
have been revised and codified, and obsolete, 
vague, and conflicting statutes have been abro- 
gated, until one small volume suffices to con- 
tain all of the United States laws, and one 
small volume the laws of a State. The general 
laws of all the States have been made as far as 


144 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


possible harmonious. The jury system has 
been revised. A jury is now composed of seven 
men only, and a majority of their votes make 
the verdict. All this has greatly simplified the 
administration of justice. These measures have 
rendered it possible to make the law quick and 
sure.” 

“This is all as it should be,” says Taira. 
“ Are your courts of justice free ? ” 

“Yes,” answers the professor. “ It is now a 
recognized duty of the State to administer jus- 
tice without cost to the litigants both in civil 
and in criminal cases. It is administered 
promptly, with no further delay than fairness 
requires. For a long time citizens burdened 
with taxes imposed by the State, were left by 
the State to bear their civil wrongs in silence, 
or to risk ruin in trying to get them righted, 
notwithstanding the great sums in taxes which 
they paid to the State for protection. The State 
would not go to the trouble nor the expense of 
defending them. A citizen might be defrauded 
of an estate, the poor woman of her furniture 
or her little home, but the State turned a deaf 
ear to their complaints. They had to bear their 
losses, or run the risk of further and possibly 
greater losses, often beyond their means, in 
carrying on an expensive and unequal suit, and 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 145 

in possible appeals. The rich and the poor now 
stand equal in the courts of law and justice, for 
justice is free and the State promptly protects.” 

“ Does not this, overburden the courts, and en- 
tail great expense on the country?” asks Taira. 

“ On the contrary,” answers the professor, 
“since justice is simple, prompt, and certain, 
and can be had without cost, the number of 
trespasses has enormously diminished. The 
great majority of civil offenses were consequent 
upon a costly, slow, and inefficient administra- 
tion of justice. Since penalties are prompt and 
certain, offenses are more rarely committed.” 

“True, this seems natural when we stop to 
think of it,” says Taira. 

“The functions of our government,” resumes 
the professor, “ are limited as nearly as possible 
to the administration of prompt and free justice, 
to protecting the interests of the future genera- 
tion, caring for minors, to imposing suitable re- 
strictions of marriage, and doing such few things 
as manifestly devolve upon the public to do, and 
which private enterprise would not presumably 
accomplish as well. The conferring of personal 
freedom and responsibility, giving the people 
full liberty of action, limited only by the like 
liberty of all, conditioned by equity and justice, 
and making the individual personally responsible 


146 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


for his actions are its aims. In most matters, 
especially those where profits may accrue, pri- 
vate enterprise has proved to be much more ef- 
ficient than governmental management. This, 
you will see, limits the necessities of legislation. 
But few bills of a material private nature are 
passed, and most of these are thoroughly con- 
sidered by the most brilliant and capable men 
of the country in the State councils before 
being submitted to the legislative bodies. Even 
with these safeguards, many legislative enact- 
ments are found to be injurious.” 

“ Are State governments organized on the 
same plan ? ” asks Taira. 

“ State governments are organized on about 
the same lines as those of the general govern- 
ment which we have examined,” says the pro- 
fessor. “ They have their State Council, Legis- 
lative, Judiciary, and Executive Departments, 
formed and acting in about the same manner as 
those of the general government. The govern- 
ors are elected by the people of the State at 
large, for a term of years, and are not re- 
eligible.” 

“ We have learned,” says Taira, “that your 
great men were for a long time in despair of ob- 
taining good municipal government in your 
great cities, but that you have now succeeded 


A CENTURY ON J FA RE. 147 

one has only to look around this vast city to be 
convinced/’ 

Yes, we think \re have at last solved the prob- 
lem,” says the professor, ''as far as our present 
social advancement will admit of its working. 
In a representative government the representa- 
tives, as a rule, are neither better nor worse 
than the majority of the people by whom they 
are elected. A low moral and social condition 
of the people generally means morally and in- 
tellectually low and bad representatives, and 
vice versa, 

" Good government requires that the moral 
and social condition and the education of the 
masses of the people be raised to as high a stand- 
ard as possible. Then the people must have the 
best form of government to act under, giving 
them full freedom, yet making them personally 
responsible for the consequences of their acts. 

"This has been accomplished as far as pos- 
sible. 

"The making of the cities free and respon- 
sible for their own good or bad government 
was the beginning of the evolution of a better 
city government, as from freedom conditioned 
by right and justice, and personal responsi- 
bility, has always been evolved the highest so- 
cial conditions of civilized people. 


148 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“ The abolition of the primaries, and the re- 
quirement that the people at large should nomi- 
nate their candidates for office, at registration 
was the next great reform.” 

“ What are the present forms of your muni- 
cipal government, and what are its relations to 
the State?” asks Taira. 

“ The models of our city governments and 
the relations of the cities to the State are about 
the same as those of our State governments and 
the relations of the States, to the United States. 

“We have a general law in each of the States, 
granting to cities of one hundred thousand pop- 
ulation and over, covering a given restricted 
territory, in proportion to population, freedom, 
and the right to manage their own affairs, 
with about the some limitations of rights and 
jurisdiction toward the States as those of the 
States toward the United States government. 
Outlying districts possessing the requisite popu- 
lation may become annexed. Cities may be 
taxed for State roads and all public works of 
State interest. These taxes must be within the 
limits of justice. 

“Suffrage is restricted by reasonable property 
and educational qualifications. 

“ The municipal government consists of four 
branches — 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


149 


“ The Advisory Department, 

“ The Legislative Department, 

“The Judiciary Department, 

“ The Executive Department. 

“ The Legislative Department consists of two 
bodies, one, the Board of Aldermen, elected from, 
and representing the different wards ; its mem- 
bers are elected for three years ; one-third re- 
newable each year. 

“ The second body, or the City Senate, con- 
sists of a limited number of men, elected from 
the city at large, chosen from its best citizens, 
and holding office for five years, one-fifth renew- 
able each year. No person under forty years 
of age may be a member of the City Senate. 

“ The Executive Department consists of the 
Mayor, elected for five years, by and from the 
city at large. He is not re-eligible. The heads 
of the various city departments are appointed 
by the Mayor, and form his cabinet. They are 
responsible to the Mayor, and the Mayor to the 
people. This fixes the responsibility for good 
government. 

“The Advisory Department consists of the 
City Council. It is composed after the manner 
of the United States State Council, with similar 
duties. Its functions are advisory — not legis- 
lative nor judicial. It is composed of twenty- 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


150 

five members. No person under forty years of 
f age may be a member of the City Council. The 
elected members hold office for five years ; one- 
fifth are renewable each year. Fifteen members 
are elected from the city at large, by the Board 
of Aldermen and City Senate in joint session. 
Ten are appointed by the Mayor on his coming 
into office, and they hold office during his 
term. 

Each one appointed by the Mayor must have 
a university degree and be a doctor in his 
specialty. They are to be so chosen as to rep- 
resent equitably, medicine, law, philosophy, and 
all the sciences, natural, physical, social, moral, 
and economical. They are usually chosen with- 
out regard to party. 

'' The functions of the City Council are to 
prepare bills for the action of the city legis- 
lative departments, on request of the Mayor, 
or either of the two legislative bodies. It may 
also prepare and present certain classes of bills 
direct to the legislative department without re- 
quest, on approval by the Mayor. 

'' The Mayor, with collaboration of the City 
Council, must present such bills to the legis- 
lative department, as he may deem the interest 
of the city may demand. The above classes of 
bills have precedence over others. The legis- 


A CENTUJ^Y -ONIVAJ^D. 


151 

lative department may modify, pass, or reject 
such bills. 

'' The Mayor has the veto power. 

Certain classes of bills and all demands for 
franchises, must be submitted to the City Coun- 
cil for proper study and elaboration, before 
being acted upon by the legislative bodies. 

'‘When a bill specially concerns any one city 
department, the chief of that department be- 
comes a member of the City Council for its 
elaboration, and of the legislative bodies for 
the consideration of any bill prepared by the 
council. 

“The Judiciary Department construes and 
interprets the laws and acts of the other depart- 
ments.” 

The professor now proposes that they shall 
adjourn to the roof-garden, and they ascend 
thither by means of an electric elevator, that 
glides gently, aud yet swiftly, upward. 

Roses are in bloom up there, and honeysuckle, 
and the air is laden with the perfume of many 
flowers. The moon is high and at the full, and 
all the stars seem brighter, and yet softer than 
on most nights. 

Electra and Isis are seated on a low bench 
beneath a tall and beautiful Oriental plant. lolas 
stands behind them. 


152 SHADOWS- BEFORE S OR, 

The professor draws Grace to his side. 

“ This, at least, is unchanged,” he says, point- 
ing to the great dome of heaven. “ The stars 
are in their places as they were when the mum- 
mies of old Egypt were living men, as they will 
be when we are ashes.” 

“We chose a star — Frank and I,” Grace says, 
in a low tone ; “ a star to be ours, so that when 
we were apart, we might meet each other.” 

“ That blue star, there,” says the professor, 
dreamily. 

“ You have guessed it! You must read my 
mind ! ” says Grace. 

“ It is such a star as lovers would naturally 
prefer,” says the professor. “ I am old now, 
but I have been young, and I remember, I re- 
member.” It is in pity for the sadness in her 
eyes that he takes her hand, no doubt, but 
Electra whispers, “ Ah,” and looks at Isis. 

At this juncture there is an interruption. 
Kala comes to tell them that guests have 
arrived, and shortly two young men appear. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


153 


CHAPTER X. 

Darwin Hall and Spencer Grey have ar- 
rived. 

Now every one grows livelier. The young 
men have so much to say, so much to tell each 
other. 

Isis watches lolas. It is the wish of her heart 
that her brother and her friend shall love each 
other, that they shall one day marry. 

The evening passes pleasantly, despite the 
unhappiness that her grandfather’s devotion to 
Grace Malcom gives Isis, when she allows her 
mind to rest upon it. 

Darwin Hall and Spencer Grey, lolas, Electra, 
and herself, have many things to tell each other, 
and the evening ends, with a little talk from the 
professor, which, if not a lecture on astronomy, 
comes very near being one. 

The professor never bores people with these 
talks of his, which he enters upon naturally and 
without preface, and the interest the young 
people show this evening, delights him. As they 
are about to part for the night, he says : 


>54 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“ Children, I have a proposition to make, to 
which, I flatter myself, you will take kindly. 
You have all left college, but have not forgotten 
the student habit, which is so easily lost amidst 
the ordinary occupations of life. At this period 
my experiences will benefit you more than they 
would have done in the past, or will in the 
future, even should such an opportunity occur 
again as that we shall be together with no spe- 
cial demands on our time. My lectures are over 
until the holidays come to an end and you are 
as free as children. It so happens that the 
great inventor. Dr. Nordenfeldt, has placed his 
new air-ship at my disposal. What do you say 
to taking a trip over the United States in her in 
company with Mr. Taira our Japanese friend? 

“We will visit many places of interest, and 
each evening I will speak on some special topic. 
It will be well for you all and it will help this 
little girl to know us better and to take her place 
among the young people of her own age, and to 
feel herself no longer a strancrer.” 

o o 

“ When I am with you I no longer feel my- 
self a stranger. I fancy that I am with old 
friends,” Grace softly whispers. 

A benign and affectionate expression settles 
upon the professor’s face, and he strokes her 
silken tresses with his hand. , 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


155 


'^You see,” whispers Isis to Electra, '‘she is 
first everywhere.” 

“ I see,” replies Electra, “what an actress she 
is. How good and simple your grandfather, 
with all his learning” 

“Yes, Isis, it is not the weakness of age that 
makes him her prey. His mind is all that it 
ever was. It is because he is so great and good 
that he cannot conceive of the existence of any- 
thing base ; the perpetration of a fraud, or that 
one so sweet and gentle outwardly, could have 
a false heart.” 

“ Oh, yes, dearest, that is it,” sighs Isis, “ un- 
less — always unless it is all really true.” 

“You are also somewhat blinded by your 
goodness,” says Electra. 

“ I am not good. I have a jealous disposi- 
tion. I have just discovered that,” Isis declares, 
“ and if I have wronged poor Grace I must make 
amends.” 

Meanwhile the young men have gathered 
about the professor and are enthusiastically dis- 
cussing the proposed excursion. The air-ship, 
the places at which they will alight, the topics 
which the professor will discuss. They know 
the value of the offer he has made them. 

Meanwhile Grace rises and comes timidly 
toward Isis and Electra.^ 


156 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

“ What a beautiful idea ! ” she says, “I used 
to think, before I went to sleep, that to travel 
through the air would be the most delightful 
and wonderful possibility, but I was only once 
in a captive balloon in Central Park, and then I 
should have been frightened to death but that 
Frank held my hand. Now, you think nothing 
of sailing about above the world.” 

She smiles gently at Isis as she speaks, and 
•despite her jealousy, the professor’s grand- 
daughter can but feel that she is very winning. 
But Electra draws herself up and speaks before 
her friend can say anything. 

“ I wonder you do not write your experiences. 
Miss Malcom,” she says, “a century under 
ground would be a most interesting title.” 

“ I know nothing of all that time. I was un- 
conscious,” says Grace. Electra suddenly bends 
her head and whispers in her ear : 

“ These people may be deceived, but I am 
not. Do not, I entreat you, play on the profes- 
sor’s credulity. Really, you should have made 
yourself up better for a fossil remains. You 
were born about twenty years ago, you darling 
little adventuress. You might as well confess, 
for you will be found out one of these days and 
justly punished.” 

“ Good heaven ! Yofi think mean impostor ! ” 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 157 

says Grace, in a horror-stricken tone ; you 
cannot see how I have suffered, and pity me for 
my hard fate ! Are women as cruel to each 
other as they were a century ago? ” 

'' Not cruel, but just. We must know further 
of this,’' says Electra, and turns away. 

Isis has not heard what they are saying, but 
she guesses the tenor of their talk by the 
gleams that flash from Electra’s eyes, and the 
pallor that creeps over the face of Grace 
Malcom. 

'' Is it grief — or guilt ? ” she asks herself. Her 
heart says, '' Believe in all men and women,” or 
so she thinks, and all that is gentle and compas- 
sionate in her lifts up its voice. 

'‘This may be the rational explanation,” she 
says, " but I will not yet believe it.” And as 
Grace advances, a piteous look upon her face, 
her hand outstretched, Isis takes it and gives it 
a long, passionate pressure of sympathy. 

Then Grace, sick with woe, goes back to the 
professor, whom she now realizes to be, with 
Isis, almost her only friend in this strange, new 
world in which she has awakened. 

She takes his arm as a child clings to its 
mother in a moment of terror, and the young 
men who are standing about him look down 
upon her admiringly. It is not in any masculine 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


158 

heart to feel anything but kindness for this 
gentle being, and their benign looks soothe her 
wounded spirits. 

“ Ah ! ” whispers Electra to Isis, “she has the 
art that all these women share, the siren power 
to which most men succumb so readily.” 

The course of conduct which Electra has in- 
augurated, and by w'hich Isis is influenced, rather 
because she looks up to Electra as her counsel- 
or in most things than because she thinks it 
right, throws poor Grace more and more upon 
the society of the professor, and deepens the 
suspicions which the others entertain of her. 

She is nearly distracted with misery. The 
thought that she has no means of proving the 
truth — which to herself seems impossible — is 
torture. She possesses not a relic of the past. 
Even her clothes are destroyed, nothing is left 
but her simple self, and she is only a woman 
like the others. 

She is conscious that “ before she went to 
sleep ” she would have hailed such a tale as she 
has told with derision. 

“ No — we are all alike, we women,” she sighs, 
“but I know that Isis is an angel, and it is 
Electra who is my persecutor, I am sure.” 

Although this is true, we must remember that 
Electra is a victim of unfortunate heredity and 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


159 


environment, coupled with a disastrous remnant 
of the old theological dogmas. From these she 
has received a low standard of honor and no 
standard of justice. Had she been in perfect 
touch with the women of her century, she would 
have spared Grace, personally, until she knew 
the truth of which she spoke, when only it would 
have been her duty to expose her, whatever 
consequences she herself might suffer. 

Electra, who made no vain boast when she 
declared that she might have been a lawyer, 
strives in vain to make poor Grace incriminate 
herself. The girl’s face grows more pitiful 
every day and she weeps more and more in the 
silence of her own room, but Electra can find 
no harm in her. 

Meanwhile all the talk is of the coming voy- 
age of the Flying Queen, and every heart beats 
lightly but that of the poor little waif and stray 
of the last century, who thinks of her lost 
friends, of Frank, who loved her so well, and 
finds her only consolation in the society of the 
professor and Isis. But poor Isis, try as she 
will, cannot quite conceal from Grace a shade of 
distrust. 

And so the day of departure comes at last. 

As the Flying Queen can stop at will at any 
large city and can move as swiftly as a bird. 


i6o SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

there is no need of having much supply of pro- 
visions on board, but some there must be. The 
professor takes Grace with him to inspect the 
store-room, and she sees shelves piled with 
dainty crystal boxes in which are substances of 
all colors. These, the professor explains, are 
what are called the Edison foods. “We name 
them after that famous man who originated the 
idea of their preparation,” he says. “They 
contain the virtues and nourishing powers of 
meats, fruits, and vegetables, of coffee, milk, 
and tea, and are all delicious to the taste. 
Their comparatively small bulk and the fact 
that they need no cooking, make them very use- 
ful to travelers. A lady can carry in a little 
satchel provision for a day, and indeed, many 
who are averse to animal food, have substituted 
for it the foods to the production of which no 
flesh has gone, but which have all that is need- 
ful to us in beef and mutton. Pork no human 
being now eats. There is a pig in every zoolog- 
ical garden, of course, but there are none else- 
where.” 

“What has become of Cincinnati?” Grace 
asks with a smile. 

They admire the store-room for a while, and 
peep into the cunning little salon. The upper 
deck charms Grace most. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. i6i 

“Ah ! ” she says, as she looks upwards. “ If 
we were only going to some beautiful land be- 
yond the stars, where I could find my dear ones, 
where Frank would come to me, and my mother 
take me to her bosom.” 

“You love Frank still,” says the professor 
softly. “ A hundred years have passed, yet you 
remember so well.” 

“ If we could live a million years,” says Grace, 
“ if we could be ourselves throughout eternity, 
those who love would never forgets And I 
only parted from Frank a few weeks ago, re- 
member. A century has passed without leav- 
ing any impression on me.” 

“Yet you should hate him,” says the pro- 
fessor, “ for he is the cause of this strange trial 
that you are enduring.” 

“ Frank loved me so ardently. I was cap- 
ricious — absurd. I amused myself by vexing 
him, because to make up again was so sweet.” 

‘“'I'he falling out of faithful hearts. 

Renewal is of love,’ ” 

quotes the professor. 

“ Frank gave me a volume of Tennyson,” 
says Grace. 

“ In blue and gold, with the poet’s portrait on 
the first page,” says the professor. 


i 62 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


“It was indeed,” says Grace. “ But how do 
you guess things so closely?” 

“ I remember the taste of the period,” says 
the professor. “ I should have chosen a volume 
in blue and gold for my little first love, perhaps 
a copy of Longfellow.” 

“ Had you a first love?” asks Grace. 

“ I scarcely look like the hero of a love tale,” 
sighs the professor. “ But yet I had a first 
love, and I never loved any one as I loved her. 
When I lost her my heart was almost broken, 
and life was a blank to me for a long, long 
time.” 

“Yet you married,” says Grace softly. 

“Yes, little one, I married at last, a sweet 
and beautiful woman. She died long ago ; she 
was the grandmother of my Isis. At a hundred 
and thiity, one has had many experiences, and 
outlived many people. I was a lonely man dur- 
ing the brief time in which we remained young, 
a hundred years ago ; and as I told you, I never 
loved any one so well as — as the girl I men- 
tioned to you.” 

“ Whether we live through a hundred years, 
or wake to find that we have slept through 
them, we suffer all the same,” says Grace. 

“Yes, had you lived through them with 
Frank,” says the professor, “you would now 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


163 


be an old woman a hundred and twenty years 
old ; b^rank a hundred and thirty, white-haired 
as I am, old, old, old.” 

'' But he would be my Frank still,” says 
Grace. '' The only man in the world for me.” 

For some unaccountable reason this answer 
so delighted the professor that he bestows a 
fatherly embrace upon his fair companion, and, 
by unlucky chance, Electra, coming softly upon 
them, surprises it. 

‘'The wicked little impostor,” she says to 
herself. “ But* so it is always, the best of men 
succumb to the arts of the worst women. It is 
just the same in that respect in the twentieth as 
it was in the nineteenth century.” 

Isis has numerous pet birds. One tamer than 
the rest perches upon her shoulder and takes 
from her lips morsels which she offers it. 
Darwin Hall, looking upon the picture, thinks 
there could be nothing more beautiful, and Isis, 
under his glance, blushes like a wild rose. It is 
so sweet to be thought fair, and she reads all 
that he thinks in his expressive eyes. 

And now a new hope awakens in the heart of 
Isis, as she learns by that intuition which women 
have in such affairs, that there is nothing seri- 
ous between Spencer Grey and Electra ; that it 
is merely a flirtation. She sees that Spencer, 


i 64 shadows before^ OR, 

ever now and then, leaves them and goes to the 
spot where Grace sits beside the professor, and, 
moreover, that lolas and Electra find delight in 
each other’s society. Her hope is this, that 
Electra and lolas will learn to love each other, 
that Electra will become her brother’s wife, and 
so, in a sense, her sister. That will be delight- 
ful, and will repay her for much else that may 
not be pleasant. In dreams of the future she 
sees everything accomplished, as in the scene 
with which a drama closes, its trials and troubles 
all happily ended. In fancy she sees Electra 
with her hand in that of lolas; on the other side 
Darwin holds hers. Between them her grand- 
father stands and blesses their union, and Grace 
is nowhere. The door has closed upon this 
terrible situation for ever, and their old happiness 
has returned. They devote themselves to each 
other and to making the professor enjoy his 
declining years, and are happy ever after. 

Does any thought of this sort visit the dreams 
of Electra? Isis is afraid to hint at such a thing, 
lest she should frighten away some little love 
that is still fluttering near, and has not built its 
nest in her friend’s heart. 

Electra and Isis, who share the same room 
constantly, whisper to each other, “ Are you 
awake?” Lonely little Grace weeps, as is her 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 165 

wont, very softly, so that no one may hear her. 
The professor spends some time in evoking 
from the past sweet memories that thrill his old 
heart and make it young again. 

Darwin Hall retires late, and lolas and 
Spencer Grey smoke, as young men might have 
done in the century gone, and talk meanwhile. 

lolas,” says Spencer, '‘what a strange, 
lovely, wonderful little creature Grace Malcom 
is, as she emerges from her chrysalis state and 
becomes more like the women of our day. She 
is interested now in all that interests us. Her 
clinging air has vanished and yet she is modest 
and gentle. In her trustful looks she still asks 
for protection, yet her ideas are clear, while her 
confiding manner is charming. Miss Electra, 
now, distinguished as every one must acknowl- 
edge her, seems to need nothing that one can 
do for her.” 

" She seems indeed sufficient for herself,” 
says lolas with a sigh. " She holds out her hand 
to no one for assistance.” 

" Exactly, — and Grace, though so unlike her, 
is not as she at first seemed to be, of the tired- 
vine type which would gladly twine about the 
nearest tree, and love it for the support it of- 
fers,” said Spencer. 

" No; I find no lack in her,” says lolas. “ She 


i66 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


has self-poise, independence, and the courage of 
her opinions. Yet I feel that she must be taken 
care of in every position by some one devoted 
to that purpose.” 

“A feeling that we must all share,” says 
Spencer, “ the helpless little angel ! Your grand- 
father seems to appreciate the fact ; he is deeply 
interested in her.” 

“ Certainly ; that is a fact which all who run 
may read,” lolas answers, not quite genially. 

After this he merely murmurs an assent when 
his friend addresses him, and silence soon 
brings sleep with it. 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


167 


CHAPTER XL 

4 

The Flying Queen prepares for her de- 
parture. The man who navigates her has all 
the self-contained gravity of demeanor which 
was the peculiarity of the engineer of an ocean 
vessel in an earlier day. 

The professor and his guests, sitting together 
on the deck, are absorbed for the nonce in this 
flight from earth which they are making, for 
though the air has been navigated a long while, 
the Flying Queen has many improvements and 
additions new to everyone. 

The professor, who knows nothing of the sus- 
picions of Electra and Isis, or of the jealousy 
of the latter, is very happy, but the calm of his 
age is disturbed by many thoughts and recollec- 
tions he had fancied set aside for ever. 

As for the girls, when Electra said. '‘What 
a splendid summer we should have were it not 
for the girl ! she pictured the whole situation. 

All the tenderness and pity she felt for Grace 
when she thought her the victim of a strange 
and terrible misfortune begins to fade. She 


i68 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


now half believes that the girl may be an im- 
postor, and her respect for her grandfather is 
lessened in consequence. She feels that he is less 
acute than two girls of eighteen. Though he is 
kind as ever, he seems often to let her slip out 
»of his mind entirely ; to be thinking of some- 
thing else ; and whom but Grace Malcom has 
disturbed the domestic happiness which has 
hitherto been notable? However, her naturally 
hopeful nature often reasserts itself, and then 
she believes that all will yet be well. She still 
tries to hide from Grace her suspicions, and to 
be to her a gentle and loving teacher. 

Taira Minamoto sitting at the feet of the pro- 
fessor, notebook in hand, listens as he tells him 
the tales of a hundred years, the causes of many 
changes. 

The harbor with its mighty fleet of vessels is 
discovered ; the beautiful vistas are pointed out. 

The business portion of the city of New York 
has spread over the whole island. Its outward 
portions are covered by enormous clearing- 
houses for all kinds of heavy and bulky 
merchandise. 

The value of beauty is now understood by all, 
and homes are entirely separated from the haunts 
of labor. In fact, the great machinery now 
used renders any other conditions undesirable. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 169 

As they float up over the Hudson, there is no 
array of foundries, nor smoke and cinders, to 
spoil the beauty of the scene. 

Old Newburgh lies in the shadow of the High- 
lands, a quaint town, where many relics of the 
Revolution are cherished. Storm King and 
Cro’ Nest have not altered since the nine- 
teenth century, and they awaken Taira’s deepest 
admiration. 

They inspect that relic of the past, the sum- 
mer home of Morse, the father of telegraphy, 
now open to visitors, to whom a guide explains 
his discoveries. His methods are all set aside 
for new ones, but this was the basic thought from 
which arose all the wonders now so familiar to 
men that they have ceased to marvel at them. 

West Point is here also. Although there is 
no more war, the great military academy still 
exists, but it is intended only to furnish the 
skeleton of an army to serve in case of need. 
The wonderful promontory is unchanged. The 
dark background of hills and the original earth- 
works and defense remain. Looking along the 
Hudson from this point its most beautiful effect 
is obtained. The monuments still stand, the 
names of famous victories cut in great letters 
upon the rocks so many years ago. 

And what do you suppose that is ?” the pro- 


170 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

fessor asks of Taira Minamoto. They are 
hovering very low over a beautiful path, and 
Taira indicates that he cannot guess what Eng- 
lish name it merits. 

‘"There,” says the professor, “the West Point 
cadets have been from time immemorial prone 
to wander with the girls who flock to the fashion- 
able hotels. Nothing of that sort has altered 
for two hundred years. Long ago they named 
it ‘ Flirtation Walk.’ ” 

Taira records the name, but flirtation conveys 
no idea to the Japanese mind. In his report 
he writes of it as “ The Rendezvous of the 
Gentlemen.” 

A Japanese is a refined creature. It is im- 
possible to guess how delicate is his habit of 
thought unless one knows him. 

The Flying Queen simply drifts about in 
upper air, often rising so high that she will be 
floating in clearest spaces, while clouds gather 
and a rain storm rises below them, and spends 
itself and the sky grows blue again. 

At times as they go with the wind, the speed 
is incredible, yet they lose the sense of swift- 
ness and could often believe that they stood 
quite still, as the ship hovers almost stationary 
over some beautiful vista. 

It is natural that the group should, under 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


171 

present circumstances, fall into pleasant general 
discussion of many and various themes. The 
social status of women is a subject that seems 
to be of particular interest to Grace, who had 
already imbibed some progressive ideas concern- 
ing it before her long sleep. 

She is seated as usual, near the professor, 
when a remark from him causes her to say : 

How happy seems the sociological and phy- 
sical condition of women now compared with 
that to which I have been accustomed. I am so 
slight and weak, and you all seem to be so full 
of health and strength. Nothing seems to tire 
you, and you have no nerves, and enjoy equal 
rights. These conditions enable you to enjoy 
and to confer so much more happiness in life 
than poor, weak I am able to do. I suppose 
the ' women's rights’ women ’ brought all this 
about, did they not?” 

'' I think not,” says lolas. “ From what I 
have read of them, I think they were working- 
on wrong lines. At least to-day we have no 
special organizations to favor the interests of 
either sex separately. We are all equal as far 
as privileges and justice can make us so. Let 
us ask the professor to tell us of the evolution 
of women to this better mental, moral, physical, 
and social status.” 


172 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“Yes, do,” says Grace. 

“ I shall be delighted,” says the professor, 
“ to make the evolution of women to their pres- 
ent status the subject of this evening’s talk, if it 
pleases you all.” 

A chorus of voices gives assent. The Flying- 
Queen descends for the night, in the midst of 
oleanders, interspersed with grass plots and 
wild flowers and roses in bloom. The breezes 
come laden with their fragrance. Here, in a 
beautiful bower, over their tiny cups of coffee, 
they beg the professor to fulfill his promise. 

“Our early would-be reformers,” he begins, 
“did not go back to first principles, did not 
search out the causes of the evils they sought 
to remedy. They saw woman, weak and sickly, 
carrying on an unequal struggle in the world, 
and they sought to ameliorate her condition 
without first studying the causes and endeavor- 
ing to remove them. 

“ The laws of heredity and environment, of 
sexual and natural selection and survival of the 
fittest, work throughout human and animal life, 
and all animate matter. They operate on both 
physical and mental qualities, and deteriorate 
or ameliorate them, as they are, or are not, taken 
advantage of. A just comprehension of the 
subject makes it necessary to remember that 


A CENTURY ON IV A RE. 


173 


the human being is but an evolved animal, and 
as a race offers no exception to these laws. 
Physically and mentally the human species can 
be traced back to a geologically remote past 
and to a lowly pedigree. A study of these laws 
reveals to us, that if the condition of woman as 
a class is, mentally and physically considered, 
inferior to that of man, this mental and physical 
inferiority must have, other considerations being 
equal, natural causes for its basis. The laws 
governing these causes are the same as the laws 
governing the causes which operate to produce 
differences in mental and physical powers and 
forms between the sexes among the lower 
animals. 

If we can search out and remove or modify 
these causes, we can obliterate or modify the 
conditions resulting from them. An examina- 
tion of some of the lower forms of animal life 
will make this more clear. Among some species 
of wild animals, we see wide differences between 
the mental and physical conditions of the sexes. 
Among domestic animals we see these differ- 
ences obliterated or modified by sexual and 
natural selection, and the choice of the fittest. 
Some few examples will show the results of 
sexual and natural selection and environment 
in producing or obliterating wide mental and 


174 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


physical variations between the sexes. In the 
deer family the bucks fight for possession of the 
does ; the largest and most powerful buck, pos- 
sessing the best antlers for attack and defense, 
usually becomes the victor and the possessor 
of the harem and leaves most offspring. The 
inferior bucks are driven away and leave few 
or no offspring. But with the does the inferior 
and best animals alike bear progeny there being 
no selection of the best.” 

Grace is interested, as are also the other 
listeners, but if it were daylight, the faintest 
possible suggestion of a smile might be seen to 
hover upon her face. For she is thinking what 
very weighty subjects are handled by people in 
the midst of oleander perfumes and with the 
evening stars beaming softly from the over- 
arching sky. 

“ In the laws of transmission,” continues the 
professor, “although the mental and physical 
qualities are to a feeble extent transmitted 
through both sexes to both sexes, they are in 
the main transmitted from the one sex to pro- 
geny of the same sex. The physical and mental 
qualities of the male ancestors are to*a superior 
degree transmitted through both sexes to the 
male descendants, and the physical and mental 
qualities of the female ancestors are in like 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


175 


manner transmitted In a superior degree through 
both sexes to the female descendants. Through 
this law and the laws of sexual and natural 
selection and survival of the fittest, the bucks 
tend constantly to become stronger and finer 
animals ; the best animals leave most offspring. 
Among does, the inferior as well as the superior 
animals leave offspring, and the development 
of the doe consequently tends to remain station- 
ary at a point of excellence just sufficient to 
maintain the race, deterioration below this point 
being prevented by inferior animals leaving no 
offspring. This difference between the males 
and females holds good in greater or less 
degrees in all species of animal life, wherever 
the males fight for possession of the females, 
and wherever conditions of environment are 
such as to demand greater physical and mental 
activities from the male than they demand from 
the female. Under these conditions the males 
tend to become larger and physically and men- 
tally stronger than the females. The human 
species offers no exception to these laws. 

'' Among some species of birds, the females 
select as partners the males having the most 
brilliant plumage, and presenting the finest 
appearance. Following the same laws this 
mode of selection has evolved the brilliant 


176 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

plumage which in such cases the male alone 
possesses. 

“In domestic animals we see the same laws 
exemplified. In cattle raising, the males selec- 
ted for breeding purposes are the largest and 
best-formed animals for beef and for work, 
whereas among the females the milk-producing 
quality is usually the main consideration for 
which they are selected, and inferior animals in 
other respects are often bred from. This again 
evolves a race of large, powerful, well-formed 
males and a race of smaller, weaker, and inferior 
females.” 

Taira has been absent from the rest of the 
party for half an hour, but now returns saying : 
“You ladies ought to have watched the fireflies 
with me. They are very numerous to-night 
and ” 

“We are interested in the evolution of women 
to their present state,” exclaims Isis. “Grand- 
father always illustrates his historical remarks, 
and is gradually leading up to the human family 
after beginning with the animal.” 

The professor, always inclined to be very 
serious in his philosophical moods, continues as 
if there had been no interruption. 

“ The evolution of intelligence and the evo- 
lution of physical qualities are both governed 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


177 


by the same laws of demand and environment, 
and the survival of those best adapted to re- 
quirements and surroundings is the result. 
These laws we also see exemplified in the do- 
mestic as well as among the wild animals. 

'' In horses the requirements for which they 
are bred are the same for both sexes. The best 
mentally and physically developed animals of 
both sexes are usually selected to breed from, 
with the result, that in size, intelligence, beauty, 
style, and physical endurance, the sexes are 
about equal, the difference being chiefly in their 
nervous and mental temperaments. 

'' In dogs for the chase, the same qualities, 
physical and mental, of strength and intelligence 
are required of both sexes; and for breeding, 
animals of both sexes are selected, which possess 
the required qualities in the highest degree. 

'' This aiding of sexual and natural selection 
has largely eliminated the physical inferiority of 
the females, in the two last-named instances, 
and made the two sexes more nearly equal in 
size, strength, and intelligence. Constant selec- 
tion of those best adapted to requirements, to 
the exclusion of inferior animals, has greatly im- 
proved the type and modified them to correspond 
to various requirements and localities. 

''Among the African races, where women per- 


178 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


form as much as, or more manual labor than, 
men, the women possess strength and endurance 
nearly equal to those of the opposite sex. Such 
was the case a century back in Louisiana, after 
the abolition of slavery. The colored women 
there chopped wood, carried water, and per- 
formed agricultural labor, side by side with men, 
and were but little inferior to them in physical 
endurance.” 

“ How clearly I remember that period,” says 
Grace sighing involuntarily. 

But the professor is so earnest that her re- 
trospective glance escapes him as he pro- 
ceeds : 

In primitive times, men were warriors, 
women were slaves and beasts of burden, and 
their human individualities were ignored. Men 
fought to obtain and keep possession of women, 
and it is probable that the greater size, strength, 
courage, pugnacity, and energy of men in com- 
parison with women were acquired in primeval 
times, and have subsequently been augmented 
chiefly through the contests of rival men for the 
possession of woman. The men possessing the 
above qualities in the highest degree would be 
most successful, have more wives and leave 
more progeny. The greater intellectual power 
and vigor in man, was due to natural selection. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


179 


for the most able men will Jiave succeeded best 
in defending and providing for themselves and 
for their wives and offspring. As the evolution 
of man progressed from the lower to the higher 
types, the influences of conjugal and natural se- 
lection became even more strong. Physical and 
mental health, and strength, and vigor were, at 
all times and under all conditions, requisites to 
his success in the upward phases of his progress, 
in the chase, in war, in agriculture, in business, 
and in scientific pursuits. Men possessing these 
qualities in the highest degree would be most 
successful in providing for self and in the rear- 
ing of offspring to maturity. In the earlier 
stages of this progress, women possessing the 
most physical strength and endurance, would be 
first selected as workers, and leave most off- 
spring, thus tending to evolve in woman a 
strong physical development. Her mental quali- 
ties other than those of submission, being of 
minor importance, would enter but little into 
causes of conjugal and natural selection, and 
these qualities would, therefore, not tend to be 
evolved in women in the same proportion as 
they would be with men.” 

‘'And the moral advancement?” questions 
Taira. '' What about that ? ” 

“ The moral advancement of humanity is 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


i8o 

markedly shown by contrasting the position of 
woman under these conditions with her condition 
under the advanced civilization of our day. In 
the one state she was subjected to treatment 
cruel to the utmost degree bearable. Her lot 
was that of a beast of burden, and she performed 
drudgery, which, accompanied with uninter- 
rupted bearing of children caused premature 
decay, which was followed by death from vio- 
lence or abandonment. In the other extreme 
of advanced civilization, her status is such as in 
some directions to give her precedence over 
men. 

'' Indeed it does. You are right,” says Taira. 

'' Militancy and industrialism have been great 
factors in determining the status of women,” 
continues the professor. ‘‘ The European coun- 
tries, with their large standing armies, showed 
us in the past century that in proportion as 
men are engaged in war, more labor falls upon 
the women. Social sustentation has to be 
achieved, and the more males are drafted off 
for the army the more females must be called 
upon to fill their places as workers. Hence the 
extent to which in the last century women in 
Germany, France, Italy were occupied in rough, 
out-of-door tasks and rude agricultural labors. 
The Englishwoman was less a drudge than in 


A CENTURY ONWARD, i8i 

these countries. Her work was lighter in kind 
than that performed by women on the continent. 
This amelioration of her condition as a laborer 
was due to the lessened demand on the male 
population for war. At this same time in the 
United States, where the degree of militancy 
was small and the industrial type of social 
structure very predominant, women reached a 
higher status than anywhere else. They were 
in many cases relieved of most work that would 
tend to mental and physical development, and 
result in a consequent deterioration. 

'' At one period in modern times, among the 
higher classes of society, the role of woman 
other than that of motherhood was for the most 
part one of frivolous egoism, and that of a toy 
to man. Her environment was one calculated 
to evolve a dwarfed mental and physical struc- 
ture. Arrayed in silks, petted and pampered, 
she lived in perfumed boudoirs. For physical 
exercise she rode in carriages, and dressed in 
unsanitary costumes. She spent much time in 
harmful social dissipations. For intellectual 
occupation, other than toilets and a mythological 
theology, she had social, historical, and bio- 
graphical gossip, and a literature mostly of light, 
emotional, and fictitious nature, requiring only 
weak mental effort for its comprehension. U nder 


i 82 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


these conditions, women being relieved of both 
care and labor, even physical health and strength 
as well as mental, became of less importance, 
and these were generally both ignored or be- 
came of minor importance in conjugal selection, 
thus tending to evolve and perpetuate, both 
physically and mentally, a deteriorated type of 
woman as compared with that of the men. This 
was the rule in certain classes, but there were 
exceptions to the rule applying to both sexes.’' 

Oh, yes, there were some notable excep- 
tions,” says Grace. 

As a rule at all times, but especially during 
this period among the better classes,” continued 
the professor, the principal cares of state, of 
commerce, of family, and of war devolved upon 
men. These necessitated on the part of men 
philosophical reasoning, and a knowledge of, 
and the application of, the laws of political econ- 
omy and sociology, as well as a knowledge of all 
the sciences, social, moral, and physical. These 
conditions necessitated the use of the highest 
mental and physical efforts, and required that 
these efforts should be supplemented by energy, 
patience, and perseverance. Men possessing 
these qualifications in the highest degree would 
be the most successful in life, and rear most off- 
spring to a successful maturity. We may natu- 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


rally infer, therefore, that man as a sex upon 
whom these callings and efforts have devolved, 
together with the knowledge and successful 
application of these laws, has evolved a higher 
type of mental, moral, and physical development 
than woman as a sex, upon whom has devolved 
the exercise of the inferior mental and physical 
callings. The degree of development in each 
sex through survival of the fittest, would tend 
to be evolved to meet the requirements of the 
standards of each, and no higher, and this devel- 
opment would be transmitted mainly to offspring 
of the same sex, thus tending to evolve the 
mental and physical superiority of the one sex. ^ 
To deny this, would be to deny the effects of 
the laws of heredity, and of conjugal and natural 
selection and survival of the fittest. Mother- 
hood has made woman more tender and less 
selfish than man. From differences in bodily 
organization, woman is naturally more excitable 
and not as firmly strung, nor as well balanced 
as man. These conditions were intensified, as 
we have seen, through unjust laws and social 
customs.’' 

Equity," says Taira, '' knows no difference 
of sex. The law of equal freedom, conditioned 
upon right, manifestly applies to the whole 
race, female as well as male, and the general 


1 84 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


rights deducible from this law must apply to 
both sexes equally, in so far as they both assume 
equal responsibilities.” 

''Yes,” says the professor, "differences of 
bodily organization and some mental variations 
are no bar to the preceding principles.” 

"To dispute this,” says Isis, "would be to 
say that if woman is weaker than man, she 
ought not to have like liberties with him to 
exercise the strength which she has.” 

"In our present social stage of universal 
peace,” resumes the professor, "the giving to 
women of equal rights, political and civil, with 
equal liberties, is required by that first pre- 
requisite to the greatest happiness: the law of 
equal freedom conditioned by the law of right. 
I n the militant state, when war was a probable part 
of the occupation of men, and where women did 
not fight, equal political rights for women would 
have been an injustice to men, for along with 
political rights, go grave responsibilities to the 
state, which women must be capable of and 
willing to assume. Motherhood, potential or 
actual, is a burden that women must bear, and 
of itself is somewhat of a bar to the equal attain- 
ments of the sexes in the race of life. Equity 
and justice demand, and it is the duty of man to 
see, that not a single grain is piled upon the 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


185 

load beyond what nature imposes, and to see 
that injustice is not added to inequality. 

‘'Further, the law of love teaches, that, if 
nature has given to man a smoother road than 
that which it has prepared for woman, he should 
gladly bear for her such portions of her burdens 
as shall enable her to joyously keep pace with 
him on the great journey.’’ 

“ Oh, I agree with you there so heartily ! ” 
exclaims Grace. 

“ Now we have seen,” continues the professor, 
“ that varied conditions of environment, opera- 
ting unequally upon the sexes, making unequal 
mental and physical demands upon them at 
different stages of evolution, tended each to 
evolve and perpetuate bodily and mental differ- 
ences between the sexes. We have seen that 
where conditions have been such as to demand 
a higher type of physical, moral, and mental 
development in men than they did in women, 
these differences would be gradually evolved. 
Likewise conditions of environment that made 
equal demands, mental and physical, upon the 
two sexes, would tend to evolve both sexes 
nearly equally. 

“We have seen that through a judicious'aid- 
ing of the laws of conjugal and natural selection 
and survival of the fittest, both the mental and 


i86 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


the physical inferiority of the one sex as 
compared with the other sex can to a large 
extent be obliterated, excepting those condi- 
tions which are due to inherent constitutional 
differences. 

With few exceptions up to quite a recent 
period, women have been educated either to be 
the drudges or the toys of men, or else to be 
looked up to as angels above them. It remained 
for justice to see that they were neither the one 
nor the other ; that the female type of character 
was naturally neither better nor worse than the 
male, only a little weaker ; that justice did not 
make of women men’s slaves nor their guides, 
nor their playthings, but their comrades and 
their equals in so far as nature puts no bar to 
the equality. It has remained for our time to 
tend to eliminate inequalities mental and phy- 
sical, and to make men and women comrades 
and more nearly equals. The agencies that 
have most contributed to these are : 

^‘ist. The conditional momoofamic union, or 
contract form of marital relations. 

“ 2d. The abolition of war. 

“ 3d. The equal education of the two sexes. 
“4th. A better administration of justice, con- 
ferring equal rights and responsibilities upon 
the sexes, in so far as the physical disabilities of 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


187 


a sex set no bar to the assuming of these re- 
sponsibilities. 

‘'These conditions now prevail in all of the 
countries composing the United Republics of 
Civilized Nations. The conditional or contract 
form of monogamic marital relations with its 
accompanying conditions, takes note in both 
sexes of hereditary or acquired injurious in- 
fluences, and permits and assists equally for both 
sexes the working of the laws of conjugal and 
natural selection of the best and aids in the 
choice and the survival of the fittest, thus evolv- 
ing a higher and more equal race type in both 
sexes. It thus tends to further a physical, men- 
tal, and moral equality of the sexes. 

“ The abolition of war has replaced militancy 
by industrialism, and so made possible similar 
occupations for both sexes, with a more equal 
distribution of the burdens of life, thus contrib- 
uting the leveling force of more similar en- 
vironments. 

“ Equal educational facilities have made pos- 
sible for both sexes equal preparations for the 
race of life. 

“ The better administration of justice has re- 
moved the unnatural barriers that limited the 
progress of woman. It has given her equal 
rights and privileges with men, in so far as 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


nature sets no bar to her assuming the accom- 
panying equal responsibilities. It has made it 
possible for her to enter the race and strive 
with men for the noblest ends and the highest 
rewards of life. These conditions have trained 
her in energy, patience, and perseverance, and 
have called forth the highest possible exercise 
of her physical, moral, and mental powers. 
They are conditions in which the weak and the 
unfit can no longer successfully compete. 

“ Again these conditions have struck off the 
chains of sex. The master, the slave, the toy, 
the guide, and the angel are gone. They have 
made men and women comrades and equals.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


189 


CHAPTER XII. 

On one occasion the professor and his friends 
are called on deck of the air-ship to witness a 
strange thing. The Flying Queen has ap- 
proached the topmost peak of a great moun- 
tain and is hovering over an eagle’s nest. The 
maternal bird, believing that the Flying Queen 
has designs upon her callow brood, has attacked 
it with fury. To relieve her anxiety the pro- 
fessor gives orders to depart from the spot as 
swiftly as possibly, and they sail southward fol- 
lowed by the fierce, winged mother, who shrieks 
upon their track until she is assured that her 
eaglets have no more to fear. The excitement 
of this incident seems to bind them all together 
for awhile. 

Isis finds herself speaking to Grace, who is 
trembling with mingled delight and terror. 
They breakfast happily, but as the day wears 
on, the old feeling returns, and the professor 
and Grace are together in one portion of the 
air-ship, while the young people retire to 
another. 

Electra is one of those women who have no 


190 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

doubt existed since women were, and will while 
women are ; she likes a little court of admirers. 
Hitherto, during her visits to Isis, the professor 
has taken much fatherly interest in her, and 
whenever she has met Spencer Grey, she has 
found him devoted to her. 

Now the professor scarcely seems aware of 
her existence, and since Spencer played truant 
the other day, she has felt unable to endure 
the condition of things longer. So now, as they 
find themselves rapidly descending toward a 
great city, she makes a sign to them to gather 
about her and in a low voice addressed them. 

“ Isis knows of what I am about to speak,\ 
she says, “ but the gentlemen of the party seem 
as yet to have no inkling of the matter. The 
noble old man, whose guests we are, is utterly 
deceived, and it appears to me that I must act. 
To remain supine would be ridiculous. Fore- 
warned is at least forearmed, and it is my duty 
to let you know the facts of the case.” 

“ Do you think the engineer is in a plot to 
lose us in upper air or to scuttle the Flying 
Queen, as the ancient mutineers were wont to 
scuttle their ships ? ” asks Spencer. “ He seems 
to me to look like an honest and well-intentioned 
man, or do you think that we may be lost in 
skyland and never see the earth again ? ” 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 191 

'' It is nothing to jest about,” Electra says, 
with her serious air ; I wonder that you need 
any explanation — you especially, lolas, who are 
so fond of your grandfather and wish men to 
hold him in esteem. Of course Spencer and 
Darwin are excusable, for they are here as I 
am, merely as guests. I presume to inter- 
meddle, however, because I love Isis so dearly. 
Has it ever occurred to you to doubt the truth 
of the story that that girl, Grace Malcom, who 
merely by putting on some garments a hundred 
years old and reading a few old books in order 
to acquire a knowledge of the customs of the 
day, passed herself off as a woman who died a 
century ago and has lain in a trance during all 
that time ? I jumped at the conclusion in- 
stantly. Now I hope I have opened all your 
eyes.” 

“Electra is always right,” Isis says, “yet I 
cannot quite believe that poor Grace can be 
what she thinks her.” 

lolas turns his large eyes upon her. 

“ You strike at the root of every matter with 
great rapidity and certainty, Electra,” he says, 
“still, my grandfather is not easily made the 
victim of pretenders, and we have discovered 
that during a trance, neither hunger nor thirst 
affect the patient. Trances last a day, a week, 


192 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

a fortnight, as all surgeons now know. Why 
not a hundred years ? ” 

“Yet it is much more probable that Miss 
Electra is right than this strange story is really 
true,” Darwin Hall declares. “The few who 
have heard it put but little faith in it. Without 
denying its possibility, its probability is remote.” 

“ There are idiots still living then,” says 
Spencer Grey. He speaks curtly, angrily, and 
holds his head high as he utters the words. 

“You are more forcible than civil in your 
remarks, Mr. Grey,” says Electra. 

“Under the circumstances, so it appears to 
me,” adds Darwin Hall. 

lolas keps silence. 

“ Better believe in this marvel — in this mys- 
tery,” says Spencer, “ than to doubt the truth 
of that delicate and lovely woman. Her honest 
belief in every word she utters is manifest with- 
out a doubt. Those blue eyes have the frank 
gaze of a child, and when you ladies hurt her 
feelings, as you often do (until now I have 
wondered why), she grieves, bitterly, cruelly. 
Oh ! disabuse yourselves of those wild suspi- 
cions, and take the gentle, little creature to 
your heart. Pity her for her misfortunes — for 
this strange and awful fate of hers. Show the 
sweetness of your natures. Surely women 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


193 


should find their best friends in each other — 
whereas they often find lack of sympathy, in- 
justice ” 

He pauses. Electra is looking at him con- 
temptuously ; Isis appealingly. His friends, 
lolas and Darwin, are coldly silent. 

'' Perhaps I say too much,” he adds, lowering 
his tone, '' but surely the professor, who knows 
so much more than we do on other subjects, 
may also be permitted to be our master in this, 
which he has so faithfully investigated.” 

‘'The professor is a magnificent old man,” 
says Electra, “ but there are certain women 
who can make idiots of all men, who have evil 
power in their eyes, be they blue or black.” 

Kala, whose quiet presence no one ever 
notices except when she is needed for some 
service, suddenly utters a little, soft ejaculation 
— a charm to banish evil spirits. Then she says 
softly: 

“ Yes, yes. Miss Electra is right. Out of 
black magic nothing can come that is not bad — 
bad — bad ” 

“ Ah, you see,” says Electra, placing her hand 
kindly on Kala’s dark head, “ even from this 
little Hindoo woman’s point of view, that girl 
yonder is declared to be bad — bad — bad.” 

“ I aver that she is a good and innocent being 


194 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


who needs and merits our kindnesses/’ says 
Spencer. He rises; they all look at him with 
the still aversion which is always the fate of the 
champion of the ostracized. 

Silence falls upon them, and soon Spencer 
turns away, crosses the deck of the Flying 
Queen and places himself at the professor’s 
side. 

'' I confess that Spencer’s conduct surprises 
me,” says Darwin Hall. 

I will not criticise a guest,” says lolas. I 
confess that there is still doubt in my mind, 
though my kno\rledge and the fact that women 
have so much more intuition than men, must 
bias me.” 

'Hf your suspicions be true, what shall we do 
to save grandfather ? ” asks Isis. 

• “ His good sense will at last come to his aid,” 
says Darwin. 

'‘There can be no doubt of that.” 

“If not,” says Electra, “we must protect.” 
They clasp hands. The eyes of the rest of the 
group are fixed upon Electra, as though she 
were a being of superior attributes. It is a 
situation which delights her. 

As they descend upon the old city of Boston, 
in the evening, there are two parties on board 
the Flying Queen. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


195 


The good professor, without being aware of 
it, heads one. Spencer Grey is his lieutenant, 
and they espouse the cause of Grace Malcom, 
the little beauty of the nineteenth century, who 
has been so strangely delivered into the hands 
of these people of the twentieth, and who quite 
appreciates the fact that Spencer has numbered 
himself among her knights. 

On the other side, Electra leads what impulse 
tells her is the cause of the right. 

lolas, for his part, feels strangely criminal. 
He fancied Electra the finest of women, but 
there is an appealing look in the blue eyes of 
Grace which she bestows oftenest on the sterner 
sex — having found it unavailing with her own — 
which makes him feel that he can scarcely move 
against her. Moreover, he finds in his grand old 
relative’s face no look of weakness or childish 
credulity. Rather that of a man in his prime 
who comprehends a new mystery and has ac- 
quired a new hope. 

They reach the city in the gloaming, and, de- 
serting the Flying Queen for awhile, walk about 
amongst the tangled streets, that remain as in- 
comprehensible as ever to the stranger. 

Boston has grown very old, but she reveres 
her past more deeply than New York does hers. 
Feneuil Hall still stands. Reverence is paid to 


196 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

Bunker Hill monument, and the children of 1993 
play their new games on Boston Common. 

No wonder that the professor finds himself 
inspired, and that his evening talk is longer and 
more Interesting than usual, or that they remain 
a day or two in Boston, which in the course of 
a century has become th*e literary center of the 
universe. They are stopping at a palatial hotel 
in one of the beautiful private parlors of which 
they have gathered after a late dinner. The 
ladies and young gentlemen are all very hand- 
somely dressed, as they are going out to a re- 
ception. Isis has entertained them with several 
brilliant vocal and piano pieces and recitations, 
and Taira now turns to the professor. 

“ What shall we do this evening now that the 
ladies have deserted us?” says Taira. 

“We might take a stroll on the Common,” 
replies the professor. 

“ I feel slightly indisposed to-night — lazy 
perhaps. I would like to hear you talk. Tell 
me of the evolution of the institutions of mar- 
riage.” * 

“With pleasure,” says the professor, “and 
when I have finished, I hope you will ask such 


* See Herl)ert Spencer. "‘Principles of Sociology” Vol. ist. 
Part III, “Domestic Institutions.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


197 


questions as you wish. Interrupt me with in- 
quiries if you desire, and feel at liberty also to 
make known your own views,” and the profes- 
sor begins in his clear and melodious voice : 
'' Throughout nature the maintenance of species 
is the primary object of mating. It is the first 
and always necessary view of the matter. The 
necessity for replacing the ravages of mortality 
by reproduction, in order that a due number of 
individuals shall arrive at maturity is as neces- 
sary for mankind as for the lower forms of life. 

'' In civilized societies these requisities may 
be fulfilled under variously modified conditions, 
in accordance with environm.ent and such views 
as are for the welfare of the present and suc- 
ceeding members of the species. Institutions of 
marriage, in common with other institutions, are 
of purely human origin, and of a purely natural 
growth, determined by circumstances and vari- 
ous other conditions. They are to be judged 
by a relative and not an absolute standard. That 
which may be good under certain conditions 
may, under others, be bad. A higher constitu- 
tion of the family is reached when there is such 
a condition between the needs of society and its 
members, old or young, that the mortality be- 
tween birth and the reproductive age falls to a 
minimum, while the lives of adults have their 


198 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

subordination to the rearing of children reduced 
to a minor limit. The diminution of this sub- 
ordination takes place in three ways; first, by 
elongation of that period which precedes repro- 
duction; Second, through fewer offspring being 
born, as well as through the increase of pleasure 
in the care of them; and Third, through the 
lengthening of the life which follows cessation 
of reproduction. In this higher stage of civili- 
zation and resulting social development other 
considerations in the relation of the sexes be- 
come compatible with and accompany the pri- 
mary one of maintenance of species, such as 
companionship, affection, love, and the gentler 
and higher intercourse of minds. From the fore- 
going considerations we may deduce a standard 
of goodness for marital relations.” 

“ Please formulate the standard? ” says Taira. 

“ I will,” replies the professor promptly. “ It 
follows that those marital relations are most 
evolved and the best which, physically, morally, 
mentally, and materially considered, best sub- 
serve the interests of progeny, of parents, and 
of the social body. The relations of the sexes 
were not originally regulated by institutions and 
ideas commonly regarded as natural. The prim- 
itive relation of the sexes was one of complete 
promiscuity. In low societies, unchecked by 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


199 


moral and political restraints, the will of the 
stronger determines all behavior. Men recog- 
nize no tie between the sexes save that which 
might establishes and liking maintains. The 
women fight for the men: the men fight for the 
women. Then the impulse which leads men to 
monopolize such objects as their dress, imple- 
ments, and weapons, lead them to monopolize 
women. Utter promiscuity was checked by the 
establishment of individual connections prompt- 
ed by men’s likings, and maintained against 
other men by force. The earliest marriage 
ceremony was merely a formal commencement 
of living together. Absence of the ideas and 
feelings which we consider appropriate to mar- 
riage is shown by the presence in such societies 
of practices repugnant to us. 

''Savages habitually attach but little value to 
virtue in their wives and daughters. It follows 
that but little value is placed upon chastity 
among the young. Uncivilized and semicivilized 
people pay but little regard to those limitations 
which blood relations dictate to the civilized. 
Connections which we condemn as highly crimi- 
nal are not infrequent. 

"The regulations of the relation of the sexes 
are the result of evolution, and they follow the 
same law of change as all other social institu- 


200 


SHADOJFS BEFORE; OR, 


tions. The sentiments upholding them have 
been greatly modified and evolved by social 
-progress, and they will continue to be so evolved. 
But the evidence does not show that advance in 
the forms of conjugal relations and advance in 
social evolution have constantly kept abreast. 
Nevertheless general comparisons show un- 
mistakably that progress to higher social types 
is joined with progress toward higher types of 
domestic institutions. The earlier marital rela- 
tion might be called indefinite polyandry, joined 
with indefinite polygamy. Marriage and divorce 
were unknown. Living together without cere- 
mony took the place of the one, and turning 
out of "doors settled the other. The savage 
makes his wife a slave and treats her brutally. 
Hence feminine opposition, necessitating the 
capture of wives. The male members of the 
family oppose capture, for from the lowest to 
the highest stages of social progress there are 
tacit or avowed claims to a daughter’s services 
by her father. This leads to making compensa- 
tion, to the giving of presents, and to the system 
of purchase. From the opposition to capture 
has descended the practice of throwing rice or 
an old shoe after the departing couple. 

" The connection between mother and child 
being the most obvious there would arise the 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


201 


habit of thinking of maternal rather than 
paternal kinship. Hence came the custom of 
counting descent in the female line instead of 
the male line. The effect of promiscuity is to 
hinder social evolution. There is paucity and 
feebleness of relationship. There can be no 
developed family life nor settled political con- 
trol. It is unfavorable to the rearing of off- 
spring, for paternity is not recognized and chil- 
dren must depend almost wholly upon maternal 
care. Infant mortality is enormous, frequently 
caused by abandonment and slaying, often by 
religious sanction. The mother is valued for 
what she is worth ; the bearing of children com- 
menced early and continued under excessive 
strain causes early decay. If it is not followed 
by natural death, she is either killed or left 
behind. This primitive stage is followed by 
domestic evolution in many directions, giving 
increased coherence and definiteness to society. 

Among other forms comes polyandry, the 
one woman with several husbands, polygamy, 
the one man with several wives, and monogamy, 
the one husband and the one wife, each of these 
forms passing in several different phases. Poly- 
andry or several husbands for the one wife has 
been a common form of marital relation among 
many people. It must be regarded as one of the 


202 


SHADOWS BEFORE s OR, 


many forms of marital relations emerging from 
the primitive, unregulated state, and which has 
survived where conditions were such that com- 
peting forms could not extinguish it. The 
domestic relations of polyandry are more co- 
herent and definite than in promiscuity, and 
they may become more coherent in passing 
from the lower to the higher forms of polyandry. 
Just as there are hibitats in which only the in- 
ferior forms of animal life can exist, so in soci- 
eties subject to certain physical conditions the 
inferior forms of domestic life survive because 
they alone are practical. With peaceful tribes, 
and a restricted food supply, and a tendency to 
over-population, the inferior fertility of poly- 
andry is advantageous. Such is the case in the 
barren Himalayan region. Polygamy, or several 
wives for one husband, is common in every part 
of the world not occupied by the most advanced 
nations. The Old Testament history of the 
Hebrews is familiar to us all as one of polygamy 
or concubines. But polygamy cannot be carried 
to a universal extent where it is practised, for 
the number of women is not sufificiently great 
to allow it. In polygamous societies only the 
rich or high in rank are polygamous, and where 
polygamy exists, monogamy also co-exists to a 
greater extent. The superiority of men which 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


203 


would make them successful warriors and chiefs 
would give them the power of securing many 
women, hence many wives would be a mark of 
social distinction. In any society the doings of 
the powerful and the wealthy furnish the stand- 
ards of right and wrong, so that a plurality of 
wives would, where the custom prevailed, at 
length be considered ethically right. In earlier 
times, when women were drudges, one reason for 
desiring many wives was to have many slaves. 
That polygamy is better than promiscuity is a 
fact requiring no proof. Polygamy contributes 
in a higher degree to social preservation and is 
of a higher form than the preceding types of 
marital relations so far considered. It more 
rapidly replaced men lost in war, and so in- 
creased the chance of social survival. By es- 
tablishing descent in the male line it conduces 
to political stability, and by making possible a 
developed form of ancestor-worship, it consoli- 
dates society and from this ancestor-worship 
was evolved ecclesiastical institutions and Chris- 
tian theology. The effects of polygarriy were 
not all bad. In social conditions where women 
could not well support themselves, and where 
the number of men were inferior, polygamy pre- 
vented some of the women from remaining un- 
cared for and leading miserable lives. Polyg- 


204 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


amy, however, does not develop the higher 
emotions which the association of the sexes 
tends to foster. Old age is miserable, and life 
is shortened by a lack of aid prompted by 
domestic affection. The conditions which would 
elevate one wife to favor would in so much re- 
duce the other wives to a servile state. While 
polygamy in certain stages decreases juvenile 
mortality, and improves the condition of surplus 
women — generally suppressing prostitution — it 
keeps the household in a semi-barbarous con- 
dition. 

From a state preceding all social arrange- 
ments monogamic unions must have developed 
along with other kinds of unions, but, as has 
been shown, enduring monogamic unions were 
but slowly evolved. A developed conception 
of property rights, with resulting barter and 
purchase, decrease in war, and the consequent 
progress toward equalization of the numbers of 
the sexes were some of the causes which added 
the establishment of more enduring unions be- 
tween individual men and individual women. 
Evidently, as tested by the definiteness and 
strength of the links among its members, the 
monogamic family is the most advanced, and 
of the monogamic family the conditional is the 
most advanced. In polyandry the maternal re- 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 


205 


! lation is alone distinct, and the children but 
I partially related. In polygamy the paternal 
and the maternal relations are both distinct, 
bu^some of the children are but partially re- 
lated to each other. In monogamy the paternal 
and maternal relations are both distinct, and the 
children are fully related. The family cluster 
is thus held together by more numerous ties. 

But up to this point men would make no 
sacrifices for posterity by applying the known 
laws of hereditary influence and conjugal 
selection.” 

‘'Which was, indeed, most unwise,” says 
Taira. “ Man had long recognized the utility 
of scanning with scrupulous care the physical 
and mental qualities and the pedigrees of his 
horses, cattle, and dogs before mating them.” 

“ But in regard to his own marriage,” con- 
tinues the professor, “ facts and reason were 
set aside. Puritanical and religious education, 
made the application of these laws for the bene- 
fit of posterity, seem monstrous. The Church 
even taught that, through special creation, the 
workings of these laws were suspended when 
they concerned the human species. Man’s 
marital choice was made with as little care, and 
governed by nearly the same motives, as those 
which guide the lower animals when they are 


2o6 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


left to themselves. Through personal puri- 
tanical considerations, men were willing thus 
to entail avoidable suffering on untold millions 
of posterity.” 

“ How true, alas ! how true ! ” exclaims Taira 
earnestly and looking very thoughtful. “ And 
yet what sacrifices these same people made to 
send their blessed gospel to the heathen !” 

“Yes,” says the professor. “Men spoke of 
sacrifices made for children, but it has only 
been in the present century through the con- 
ditional monogamic union, or contract form of 
marital relations, that men have been willing to 
recognize in an efficient way their duties and 
obligations to offspring and to posterity, by con- 
forming in the right direction to the known 
laws of conjugal and natural selection and hered- 
itary influence for race improvement. By the 
sensible application of these laws in conformity 
with the teachings of science, involving only 
limited sacrifices, they have evolved a superior 
race. They combat misery at its fountainhead. 
They have even in the limited time they have 
been in operation conferred moral, mental, and 
physical well-being and happiness, far beyond 
all that was ever conferred by our old-time 
philanthropists and puritanical Christian work- 
ers. One may, then, infer that our scientists and 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 207 

I philosophers are our greatest philanthropists, 

I and that their gospel confers the greatest human 
happiness/’ 

Of that there can be no doubt,” says Taira. 
'' Then from the unconditional monogamic 
union has been evolved the conditional mono- 
gamic union.” 

Yes,” replies the professor. '‘The condi- 
tional monogamic union is the present form of 
marital relations of our country, and, with some 
modifications, it is also the form of all the coun- 
tries forming part of the United Republics of 
the Civilized World. 

“ The legal papers necessary are : 

“ First. Medical certificate. 

“ Second. Certificate of material and moral 
condition. 

“ Third. Marriage contract. 

“ Fourth. Genealogical record. 

“All of these must be publicly and officially 
registered. The marriage is then legally com- 
plete. For medical examination there are two 
legally constituted and sworn boards of phy- 
sicians, one composed of men, one of women. 
The applicant must present himself or herself 
to the proper board ; which, if the applicant 
pass, will issue a certificate attesting his or her 
good mental and physical health and freedom 


2o8 shadows BEFORE; OR, 

from injurious hereditary or acquired taints 
liable to be transmitted to progeny. The cer- 
tificate of material and moral condition must cer- 
tify that the applicants are not assisted persons, 
and that they can give reasonable assurance of 
being able to care for themselves and possible 
offspring, and that neither of them has ever 
been convicted of a criminal offense. This 
guards against perpetuating a class of criminals. 
The genealogical record is made and kept by 
the State, but the parties may be required to 
furnish certain facts for it. It embraces such 
data as are furnished, properly attested, and such 
other necessary facts as are obtainable by the 
authorities. These include ancestry, occupation, 
maladies, length of life, and dominating events 
of life and causes of death. The genealogy of 
children must be registered at time and place of 
birth. Contracting parties are often from 
widely different places which -also renders it 
necessary that a genealogical record should also 
be made at the time and place of marriage. The 
marriage contract cannot be made for a term of 
less than one year. It may be made for any 
length of time of longer than one year, or it 
may be made for life, at the option of the con- 
tracting parties. It contains a clause to the ef- 
fect, that the contract shall continue in full 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


209 


force and shall continue to hold good after the 
expiration of its original term until it be dis- 
solved by one or by both of the parties. It may 
be dissolved by a public registration of the dis- 
solution. The contract is usually drawn by the 
best legal and business talent. In view of a 
possible separation, it is so drawn as to best pro- 
tect and subserve by settlements, insurance, etc. ^ 
the interests of each of the contracting parties, 
according to each individual case, those of the 
parents as well as those of the State represent- 
ing possible offspring. The contract specifies 
each party’s right to, and responsibility toward 
possible children ; the mother usually taking the 
girls and the father the boys. The State speci- 
fies the sums to be paid conditionally and incor- 
porates clauses in the marriage contract, which 
bind the contracting parties, in the case of its 
dissolution, to make ample provision for the 
welfare of progeny. Parents may, of course, 
make such further provisions for the welfare of 
children as they see fit. But in the majority of 
cases the contract is never dissolved. To sup- 
pose the contrary would be to deny the mono- 
gamic tendency of the age, which would be a 
libel on civilized humanity. A dissolution does 
not relieve either party immediately. The hus- 
band’s liability for the possible issue of the mar- 


2 10 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


riage continues for one year contingent on the 
wife’s fidelity, or until the birth of a child, and 
the wife cannot marry again during that period 
without forfeiting the original settlements made 
on the child by the father, and in some other way 
making them equally good, subject to the ap- 
proval of the State. 

“ The State also provides insurance for the 
rearing and for the education of children, in its 
homes. For $500 cash paid, the State issues to 
a couple, on the day of their marriage, a full 
paid insurance policy, agreeing if the parties 
should wish it, to rear in its homes with parental 
care and kindness, and educate in its primary 
and secondary schools, and further give a three 
years’ course in its professional and technical 
schools to all of the children the couple may 
have. The student is free to obtain a diploma 
in any of the liberal professions, or to* acquire 
any of the mechanical trades. 

“This insurance is not obligatory, but a ma- 
jority of the people take it, for none can tell 
what fate may have in store for them. It favors 
the poor; for instance, a couple desire to marry, 
but cannot satisfy the State in regard to their 
material condition; they may, if they can, take 
the insurance policy, which satisfies this con- 
dition. It is a source of unfailing comfort and 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 


21 I 


relief to people who are unfortunate, and who 
are in the dark hours of sickness and trouble, to 
know that whatever may befall them, their little 
ones, at least, will be beyond want, and without 
being- objects of charity, will yet be sure of happy 
homes, and of the facilities for an education 
which shall be equal to the best. 

'' This alone,” says Taira, ‘‘must take away 
one-half the bitterness of life from the unfortu- 
nate. Does the $500 pay the State for the ex- 
penses it incurs in rearing families?” 

“Yes,” said the professor, “it is found to pay 
fully, for some who insure leave no progeny, 
many others who insure remain in, or achieve, 
easy circumstances, and naturally prefer to rear 
their children themselves in their own homes, 
and consequently never send them to the State 
homes. The number of couples who insure and 
do not use the insurance pays amply for those 
who do use it. Education is free to all, so that 
the insurance has to cover the additional expense 
of home and rearing only. 

“These homes are independent of the free 
charity and orphan homes, where the State also 
rears with home care and comforts, and educates 
all poor or abandoned children, and all those 
whose parents are unable to pay for them. 
Through inter-State exchange arrangements. 


2 I 2 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


these insurance policies are good in any State 
where presented and proved.” 

“ How are promises of marriage now made ? ” 
asks Taira. 

“Love,” says the professor, “ is not a thing 
to be ashamed of nor to be secretly indulged, 
and the young lady confides in her parents. 
The father, the mother, or guardian makes the 
usual investigations, and if they are satisfactory, 
the marriage is consented to. There is no ac- 
tion for breach of promise, only for breach of 
contract. The law can pay no heed to claims 
based on injury to the feelings.” 

“ What is the limit of legal anthority in the 
matter of marriage?” asks Taira. 

“To the State,” answers the professor, “ mar- 
riage is a civil contract between a man and a 
woman and a possible third party — progeny. 
The State, society, acting in behalf of its minors, 
progeny, incorporates in the contract certain 
statutes and special clauses concerning settle- 
ments and insurance intended to subserve the 
interests of progeny, in each individual case. 
To the State it can be nothing more nor less 
than a civil contract. The only interest or 
authority the State can have in the matter is to 
represent and protect the interests of its minors, 
progeny, and to see that the rights and duties 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


213 


of those involved in the contract shall be main- 
tained and enforced in accordance with justice 
and the terms of the contract. The role of the 
State, or social body, is simply that of a pro- 
tector of minors and administrator of justice. 
If it were to assume to do anything beyond this, 
it would be trespassing on personal rights and 
individual liberty, and could only work harm.” 

''I see,” says Taira, nodding his head. 

'' From these marital changes have come much 
of the improvement of the race, its consequent 
increased happiness, and the increase of hap- 
piness in store for posterity,” says the professor. 

But is not the tendency of this to decrease 
population?” says Taira. 

'' No,” says the professor. '' During the un- 
conditional monogamic union some of the best 
physically developed, strongest, and most per- 
fect individuals were abandoned women, and 
they left few or no offspring, while many phy- 
sically imperfect, weak, and suffering women 
contracted marriage, and, often unwillingly, left 
imperfect and sickly progeny. Under the con- 
ditional monogamic union the weak and sickly 
do not marry, consequently leave but few or no 
progeny, while the strong and well that would 
have gone to fill the ranks of the abandoned 
are now honest mothers of strong and healthy 


214 


SJIADOWS BEFORE s OR, 


offspring. The system replaces, in the marital 
relations, the weak and imperfect members by 
the strong and more perfect. Adultery is rare, 
and adulterers are socially ostracized. The 
social evil is nearly extinct, for no woman will- 
ingly leads a life of shame. Marriage now 
being a civil contract with its barbarous and un- 
just features eliminated, people no longer shrink 
from it. The woman demands and obtains mar- 
riage, no longer accepting shame. This form 
of marital relation best fulfills nature’s universal 
laws for the improvement of the race, by follow- 
ing the laws of heredity and of conjugal and 
natural selection, thus evolving a higher race 
type, through the constant elimination of the 
least fit. The best individuals marry. The de- 
velopment of dangerous physiological or psycho- 
logical traits would be the possible cause of an 
early dissolution of marriage, and the conse- 
quent leaving of few or no offspring. Such 
people could not readily marry again, nor con- 
tinue fruitful married relations. The require- 
ments of men always made it necessary that 
they should possess health and strength. The 
corresponding requirement of women, which de- 
mand that she should also have good physical 
and mental health and strength, has evolved these 
qualities. They have necessitated the reforms in 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


215 


their dress and in their manner of living, and 
they have made them more nearly man’s equals. 
The individuals, the highest evolved mentally^ 
morally, and physically, tend to continue long 
and happy marital relations. These relations are 
not dissolved. They thus tend to leave a larger 
number of offspring. The highest evolved type 
thus increases, and the least evolved type de- 
creases. This nearer equalization of men, men- 
tally and physically, makes possible a corre- 
sponding more equal production and distribution 
of wealth and a consequent more equal happi- 
ness among individuals at large. This has best 
solved the socialistic question that so long dis- 
turbed the world.” 

‘'We do. indeed live in an enlightened age,” 
says Taira proudly. “We know that a man’s 
environment begins a hundred years before he 
is born, and we know that all useful reforms 
must be based on prevention, not cures.’’ 

“We have seen,” resumes the professor, 

“ that with the higher stages of civilization and 
consequent social development, other considera- 
tions in the relations of the sexes, such as com- 
panionship, affection, love, and the gentler and 
higher intercourse of minds, become compatible ^ 
with and accompany the primary one. We have 
seen that along with the modified conditions, 


2 i 6 shadows BEFORE; OR, 

resulting from a higher race development, and 
with the consequent evolution of new factors, 
have also gone modified and higher conditions 
of the marital relations, such as are more in 
harmony with the higher race development. 
We have seen that the conditional monogamic 
union, or contract marital relation, seems to 
have proved itself to be the most highly evolved 
of all the marital relations. It takes note of 
hereditary influences and is most in accordance 
with the laws of sexual and natural selection, 
and thus aids in the survival of the fittest. Its 
more sympathetic ties give stronger family 
cohesion. It is marked by a greater absence of 
the repulsions, strifes, and jealousies, accompany- 
ing other forms of marital relations. It is 
marked by the absence of unequal, loveless, 
miserable marriages, that wither the mind with 
sorrow, prostitute the body, fill premature 
graves, and leave degenerate progeny. It tends 
to foster and develop the noblest traits, emo- 
tions, and sentiments of humanity. The con- 
ditional monogamic type of conjugal union, by 
contract form, seems also to have best satisfied 
the test of fitness in marital relations; that is, 
physically, morally, mentally, aiid materially 
considered, it seems to have best subserved the 
interest of offspring, of parents, and of society 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 


217 


at large. From the foregoing we may infer that 
in the present stage of human progress, the 
conditional monogamic form of marital relation, 
the one husband and the one wife, the union in 
which tender love, and respect, and harmony 
reign, joined with health and strength, mental 
and physical, accompanied by a sufficiency of 
the material necessaries of life, is the ideal 
family relation. It best subserves and best 
fosters the higher development of the human 
race, and it is in accordance with the prevailing 
ideas and sentiments associated with marriage.’’ 

At a late hour the two men part for the night. 


2i8 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


CHAPTER XIII. 

On the morning after the reception, which 
the girls enthusiastically discuss at breakfast, 
Spencer Grey says : “ Mr. Taira, you missed a 
great treat last night. Miss Isis sang several 
songs beautifully, and had praises enough to 
satisfy a prima donna.” 

“Yes,” says Grace, “she did indeed sing 
finely. Her voice never sounded better, though 
it is always so strong, and sweet, and clear. 
Her pure Italian style reminds me of Madame 
De La Grange, whom I used to hear so long 

“ Three rousing encores did please me,” says 
Isis modestly, her cheeks taking their wonted 
hue of the peach. “ Now I am going to see 
Flossy a moment before we start again on our* 
voyage. I think this will be a good time.” 

“ How can that be ? ” asks Grace surprisedly. 

“ She is at least a thousand miles away.” 

“Come with me and you will see her also, ” 
replies Isis. 

They step to a telephone office and call up 
Flossy, who promptly answers. To the astonish- 
ment of Grace she sees the likeness of Flossy 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


219 


produced as perfectly as if she stood before 
them. She looks the picture of health and 
happiness. 

“We used to say ‘Will wonders never 
cease?’’' says Grace. “Surely, they have not 
ceased yet.” 

During the day they visit libraries, museums, 
the homes of great men, and the urns of de-^ 
parted heroes. 

In one of these walks about the city Grace 
has for a while been lost, and Electra has 
whispered that she trusts she has decided to 
give up her acting and vanish from their circle 
for ever, while the professor grows somewhat 
anxious and sends Spencer Grey in search of 
her. The latter finds her emerging from one 
of those Boston institutions where dry goods 
are purchased, but which shock all the old ideas 
of this nineteenth-century “lady” as to what a 
“store” should be. The professor has given 
her some of the money of the day and she has, 
as she says, “been shopping.” 

Once on board the air-ship Grace shuts her- 
self up for an hour or two and works assiduously 
with her needle. When her task is completed, 
she weeps with happiness. The barbarous little 
relic of the nineteenth century has made for 
herself a semblance of a corset, and when she 


220 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


has laced herself snugly into it, she feels that 
she has recovered from the past at least one old 
friend. “ I felt so lost without you, dear thing.” 
Thus she ajDostrophizes the article which Isis 
and Kala believe to be an instrument of torture. 
“ Oh, I was so afraid that I should never lace 
you again in this age, when they think a woman 
with a waist of twenty-five inches beautiful.” 

“ Somehow, you look more like your old self, 
my child,” says the professor, as her slim, up- 
right figure glides to his side, the belt of her 
flowing robes reduced considerably. 

“ More like my old self ? ” queries Grace. 

“ I mean the ladies I remember a hundred 
years ago, or more,” says the old man. 

“ I feel so,” says Grace, but she keeps her 
secret to herself. She has no woman to confide 
in, and the old professor, whose lectures on 
physiology, accompanied by those of Jenness 
Miller, were one of the strong influences that 
released the waist of woman eighty odd years 
ago and gave her the fine lungs and freedom 
from suffering she now enjoys, innocently en- 
courages this little creature, whom he is trying 
to improve and to bring to an intellectual level 
with her sisters, to cling to her idols. 

Men have always preached against corsets, 
but women would never have worn them but 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


221 


for the unequivocal tokens of admiration with 
which masculine eyes have always regarded 
slender waists. 

Spencer Grey, having espoused the cause of 
the fair suspect, does not abandon it. 

The professor, as he watches him with serious 
eyes, seems to ruminate. It is while they are 
floating over the great lakes that he leaves the 
two young people together, and taking lolas 
by the arm, leads him to a spot on the Flying 
Queen whence his words can by no means 
be heard by any other on deck, and says to 
him : 

'' My boy, I have something very important 
to say to you, something that I wish you to 
think of seriously. Strong as I am, and in full 
possession of my senses, I am entirely aware that 
I have lived longer than is usual upon earth. I 
believe that in time, men will have a century of 
youth, and be able, to the last of their days, be 
they ever so many, to avoid what is called old 
age entirely ; to preserve their physical and 
mental faculties evenly balanced, and in perfec- 
tion, to have fine flesh and firm muscles, so that 
there shall be but two periods in the life of man 
— youth and maturity, and death shall come, 
painless and happy, like the falling of ripe fruit 
to the ground. But science has not yet accom- 


222 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


plished these ends, and it is not likely that I 
shall live to see it done. I was born too early. 
My youth was gone before the greatest dis- 
coveries in physiology were made, and the day 
must come, no doubt shortly, when I must lay 
my work aside and say adieu to all my dear ones. 
There are therefore many things that I should 
like to see accomplished. 

“ I shall be glad to know that Isis has found 
a partner who will make her happy. I shall be 
glad also to think that Grace ”■ — his voice falters, 
he turns away — “ that I have not utterly 
marred the life of the sweetest woman who evre 
lived. I have done her so much harm I must 
strive to compensate — in some way I must com- 
pensate ” — again his voice falters. 

lolas throws his young arm over his shoulder. 

“ Grandfather,” he says, “surely you did her 
no harm — no wrong. She had not died and 
you did not recall her to suffering. Besides, as 
you tell us, the world is now greatly improved ; 
life, to those who take advantage of its oppor- 
tunities, is a much better thing than when she 
ceased to enjoy it. You have been kindness 
itself to her. Why do you blame yourself?” 
The old man covers his eyes with his hands. 

“ I — I only am to blame for all,” he repeats, 
“ I must atone. You must aid me.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


223 


''Willingly, grandfather,” says lolas, "but 
your undeserved self-reproach emboldens me to 
speak frankly. Have you noticed that Klectra 
and Isis have not formed that sisterly friendship 
with your pretty protege, which would seem 
natural under the circumstances? You know 
that Isis is sweet and loving, and that at first 
she was disposed to be very fond of Grace 
Malcom. 

" Do you not observe that she speaks less 
with her and cannot hide a shade of coldness ? 
Now I wish to tell you the reason. The cold- 
ness which Isis manifests to Grace is caused by 
the grave doubts which exist in her milid that 
the pretty creature is what she pretends to be. 
Electra, who is a very brilliant woman, no sooner 
heard the tale than she doubted it. Though 
you have not yet confided to us your reason for 
believing that Grace Malcom — who looks no 
more than twenty — lived a hundred years ago 
and has slept dreamlessly since that hour, or 
where you found her, or how, we have such 
confidence in your judgment that we accepted 
the astonishing fact without doubt. But now 
that I find you troubled and anxious, I must 
ask you if you are sure no imposition has been 
practised upon you ? Are you not the victim 
of some one who, knowing your belief in the 


224 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


possibility of prolonging life immensely, has 
ventured to trifle with your credulity?” 

The old man lifts his head and turns his dark 
eyes upon the face of lolas with a look not to 
be described. 

“ Electra is over certain of her own penetra- 
tion,” he says. “ It is so with women still, but 
it will not always be. 

“ lolas, I know that Grace lived in her youth 
and beauty a hundred years ago, that every 
word her sweet lips utter, is true. I know. Do 
you need more than that from me, lolas ? 

“You must trust me farther,” says the old 
man, “’I may die with my lips sealed on this 
subject. It is for Grace’s sake, remember, and 
for yours. And now to the reason for which I 
wished to see you. It seems probable, more 
than probable, that Isis will marry Darwin Hall, 
and I wish to suggest to you a wife who would 
make you happy. I fear that your fancy turns 
towards Electra. My son, she would not make 
you happy. The wife who is most suitable for 
you, who will add to your existence the charm 
that it requires is Grace Malcom.” 

“ Grace Malcom ! ” exclaims lolas. He is be- 
wildered, confounded, almost horrified. He 
really begins to believe that his aged relative 
has lost his senses. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


225 


“You yourself have often said that a man 
should only marry a woman whom he loves,” 
he answers. “ I do not love this strange girl. 
There is something unnatural about her con- 
dition, even if I yield to your opinion and be- 
lieve that she has been entombed for a hundred 
years, and if she should prove an imposter” — 

“ lolas I have told you that I know," says the 
old man sternly. “ Have you ever heard me 
utter a falsehood ? ” 
lolas bows his head. 

“ Forgive me,” he says, “ have you something 
to command in this matter?” 

“ It is not a command,” says the old man, “ I 
beg you to assist me to make atonement to one 
I have wronged. I ask of you a sacrifice per- 
haps, but in the end you will find your reward 
in the love of this beautiful woman.” 

lolas looks at his grandfather, who, for the 
first time plays the part of suppliant. Hitherto 
he has bestowed every favor. He has been as 
a god to his offspring. 

The youth asks himself if it be possible that 
he ought to make this sacrifice. He communes 
with himself for awhile, then he speaks : 

“ What you wish me to do I will do if it be 
possible,” he says. “But you must give me 
time; the thought is too new, too strange. At 


226 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


present it is even repulsive. Perhaps if I knew 
all.” He pauses. 

“ It is not best,” says the professor. “ In this 
case, ignorance is bliss for you. My wish is to 
mate Grace Malcom’s youth and beauty with 
your splendid young manhood, and yet to lose 
neither of you. She will be my child, as you 
are, and when I close my eyes I shall know that 
you will make her happy, that she will bless you 
with her sweetness while you live.” 

Again lolas answers: 

“ Give me time, I will conquer my heart if pos- 
sible. Electra is the woman I love, but it is by 
no means certain that she will ever care for me.” 

“ It Is by no means desirable, lolas,” says the 
professor. “Youth’s first fancy is often a 
spring-time madness, best forgotten. I see in 
Electra nothing that makes her your fitting 
mate. Go to where Grace sits, lolas ; talk to 
her ; know her better, the love will come ; it 
must ; go now.” 

“ I will go,” .says lolas. 

He turns away, and the professor remains 
leaning over the guard of the Elying Queen, 
looking down into the clouds below. They have 
ascended of late amongst the clouds so that they 
compass them on all sides, and are floating 
westward with great rapidity. 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


227 


Taira joins the professor and they discuss the 
international standard of gold. 

“The United Republics have adopted an in- 
ternational standard of gold coinage, of decimal 
divisions and agreed fineness. This is the legal 
money of the day. The weights of these deci- 
mal divisions correspond to those of the decimal 
divisions of our dollar. Each country has its 
own coinage. Each coin has impressed upon 
one side the name and value familiar to its 
country. Upon the reverse side is stamped its 
weight in grains. Eor instance, the weight in 
grains and the value of one dollar and of five 
Erench francs are equal, and so the weight of 
five dollars and of one English pound are equal. 
The values of coins of all countries maybe com- 
pared by their respective weights in grains. 
This stamped weight indicates the international 
value of the coin. International commercial 
values and letters of credit are reckoned in 
grains of gold. The adoption of this simple 
standard did away with most of the trouble and 
expense of exchange and required only slight 
changes in the standard weight and fineness of 
coins in each country to make them conform to 
the average standard. No other changes were 
needed. All civilized countries have conformed 
to this system. An international etalon of 


228 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


value is made to correspond to the purchasing 
power of gold and to follow its permanent 
changes. This etalon of value may be used 
by agreement as a basis for the settlement of 
all long-time contracts. The amount of gold 
which this etalon is to represent, originally that 
of the dollar or its amount in grains of gold, is 
fixed every five years. The average value in 
dollars, or in an agreed number of grains of 
gold, of cotton and wool, corn and wheat, coal 
and iron, during a term of five years, in the 
capitals of all of the countries forming part of 
the union, are taken and averaged together. 
This average is compared with a like average 
for the previous five years. The average per 
cent, of gain or loss in the purchasing power 
of gold as applied to these articles is thus es- 
tablished. An equal per cent, of gain or loss in 
weight is now applied to the etalon, of value of 
gold. Coinage is not changed, but more or less 
dollars or grains of gold may be required to 
settle contracts based on etalons of value.” 

Meanwhile Spencer Grey and Grace have a 
long conversation upon the great change in 
Christian beliefs since she went to sleep. They 
discuss the long strides made in human progress 
and happiness, which these changes have per- 
mitted. After many struggles with childhood 


\ 


^ A CENTURY ONWARD. 229 

faiths, faiths which scientific facts forced her to 
abandon, Grace now sees and understands all 
this, and is very happy in the light of real truth. 
She sees her duty and her happiness in the re- 
ligion of love, equity, and justice, in the religion of 
humanity, which rejoices in all which promotes 
pleasure and happiness here in this world. She 
realizes that pleasure is life, and that pain is death. 

'' How are the poor and sick now cared for?’’ 
asks Grace. 

'‘The State,” answers Spencer Grey, "pro- 
vides hospitals, both free and paying. Those 
who cannot pay are cared for free. It also pro- 
vides free homes for the poor where they are 
kindly cared for, and, if able, are required to 
work. Private superannuation and minor insur- 
ance are also the rule. These care for the aged 
and for children.” 

" What,” says Grace, earnestly, " is considered 
the proper function of philanthropy to-day ? Our 
charities used to be rather irregular. We did not 
always know what lines were the best to follow.” 

"The proper function of philanthropy,” re- 
plies Spencer, " is now better understood. It 
is to rescue useful lives from death and disease; 
to promote the public health ; to encourage 
thrift, self-help, and hopefulness among the 
poor ; to advocate sound ethical teaching ; to 


230 


SHADOIVS BEFORE; OR, 


minimize useless suffering of all kinds and in all 
ways, but to isolate the essentially and mani- 
festly unfit, and to provide tenderly, but firmly, 
for their extinction. True philanthropy con- 
sists in preventing crime and want and suffer- 
ing being transmitted to posterity. 

“ It should work by prevention, rather than 
by cures. He is a philanthropist who binds up 
the wounds of him who has fallen among thieves, 
but he who removes the thieves is a greater 
philanthropist. 

“ The philanthropist may care for the sick 
and relieve the poor, but the greater philanthro- 
pist is the statesman who removes the condi- 
tions from which poverty, disease, and crime are 
evolved. But one must not mistake the causes. 

“In the essentially unfit there is a tendency 
to extinction through progressive degeneration, 
unless unwise philanthropy enable them to 
persist and perpetuate as parasites. Unwise 
charity and unjust puritanical legislation, mainly 
prompted by other worldly egoism, were’ re- 
sponsible for the creation of the vast army of 
hundreds of thousands of miserable, poor, dis- 
eased, and criminally depraved beings, who 
disgraced London toward the end of the last 
century. This unwise charity, and these unjust 
sociological regulations were strongly advocated 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


231 


from the pulpit, though often with the best in- 
tentions. They were promoted and sustained 
in accordance with the false standards of politi- 
cal economy and the sociological errors of the 
churches. In the great city of Paris, at this 
same epoch, there reigned personal liberty, with 
personal responsibility for results, coupled with 
a prompt administration of justice. The sale of 
intoxicating beverages was unrestricted. No 
unwise charity, no puritanical restrictions ex- 
isted, nor were they generally urged or advised 
from the pulpits. As a result there were no 
miserably poor, diseased, and criminally de- 
praved classes in Paris to compare in degrada- 
tion with those of London, or even with those 
of our larger American cities. We may, there- 
fore, infer that the sociologists of Paris were 
wiser men and greater philanthropists than the 
well-meaning theologians and Christian workers 
of England and America. 

''At that time the same unwise influences which 
were operating in London, were also operating 
in our American cities and were rapidly evolv- 
ing large and miserably poor, diseased, and crim- 
inally depraved classes, similar to those evolved 
in London. A better understanding of the 
laws of political economy and sociology enabled 
us to check in time this downward course.’' 


232 


SB Allows BEFORE; OR, 


CHAPTER XIV. 

The professor suddenly sees the slender form 
of Taira Minamoto at his side. 

“ Most honored and most great professor,” 
he says in his soft voice, “ I have come here to 
be instructed by you. I have come here to be 
taught the changes and improvements of a cen- 
tury, but the greatest mystery remains un- 
solved. They told me that in the West I should 
find everything harmonious and practical, the 
useful and the beautiful allied with common 
sense : that I should find much of the mystic 
fancies of the Orient stripped of the supernatural, 
and existing in reality in beautiful and real lives. 
It is true, and you, so famed for knowledge, so 
erudite, so venerable, you, with the crown of 
a hundred and thirty years upon your brow, tell 
me of a mystery greater than I ever heard be- 
fore. You declare that a woman, fresh, lovely, 
and beautiful, as only the women of America 
are, a woman seemingly in her girlhood, has 
lived and slumbered a century, and that by oc- 
cult power you have bidden her live again as 
when she seemed to die. Will you not reveal 
this mystery to me?” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


233 


''Taira MinamotoT says the professor, "I 
have no occult power. A strange thing hap- 
pened certainly, and to you, under your promise 
not to reveal the facts, I will narrate the story. 
I cannot tell it to my children. There are rea- 
sons why Grace herself should know nothing 
about it. At least, I must better consider the 
case before revelations are made. You shall 
hear. Come back with me to the days when I 
was as young as my great-grandson there, when 
it was no absurdity to fancy me the hero of a 
love tale.” 

Taira bent his head and touched the tips of 
his long fingers to his bosom, with a curious 
Oriental gesture. 

"In those days, now one hundred years ago 
and more, I met a girl no better than others, no 
wiser, no lovelier, but the one who filled my 
heart,” says the professor. " I desired her for my 
wife, I wooed her, and I won her promise. Our 
wedding day was fixed. She was a delicate creat- 
ure and twice she had fallen into a strange con- 
dition of trance in which she was thought dead, 
and might, indeed, have been consigned to the 
tomb, but that was when she was scarcely past 
her childhood. She was now twenty and in good 
health, her parents thought, and there seemed 
no reason why we should not be happy together. 


234 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


'' She was the daughter of wealthy people of 
position, I, a young scientist, of whom they said 
that I would one day make a name that should 
live. We adored each other. The time of our 
wedding was so near that her bridal robes were 
made, her veil ready, the guests bidden, the 
ring bought with which I was to make her mine, 
and one evening I went to her home to visit 
her. I remember where she sat beside the 
window, her back turned to the door. She was 
watching for me in the opposite direction to 
that by which I had come. It seemed a merry 
jest to me to steal softly up behind her and 
apprise her of my presence by pressing a kiss 
upon her lovely cheek. I obeyed the impulse. 
I have regretted it with unavailing tears for a 
century. As my lips touched her I fancied that 
she would start up with a laugh. Instead of 
this she uttered a loud scream and fell forward 
in a swoon. I had either forgotten how easily 
she was startled, or else believed that my kiss 
could not alarm her. Usually a swoon is not a 
dangerous thing. I caught her in my arms and 
called assistance ; but the terror which her 
mother manifested inspired the same feeling in 
us. A physician was summoned. His efforts 
to restore her to consciousness were, for a long 
time, of no avail. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


235 


'‘Then I learned that the trances into which 
she had previously fallen were preceded by 
swoons which seemed only like the fainting 
spells to which other girls are often subject. 
At last she opened her eyes and fixed them on 
me and called me by name. 

" ' Frank ! ^ she said, ' I am going away again, 
I cannot stay, but remember, I am not dead ; do 
not let them bury me alive.’ ' They shall not,’ 
I said, ' Swear,’ she repeated. ' My love, I 
swear,’ I answered. In a moment more she 
again lay unconscious in my arms. From that 
day, she never moved a lash or lifted , a finger. 
A trance, the doctors said, but as weeks crept 
by, they declared her dead. For some strange 
reason which no one understood, they told us 
that though her fair body knew no change, she 
was dead. Her life had gone out. 

" They convinced her parents, they convinced 
all who loved her beside, but they did not con- 
vince me.” 

" ' She lives,’ I repeated, 'and until she shows 
some of those evidences which mortality must 
exhibit when life has fled, you shall not coffin or 
entomb her.’ 

" They yielded to me for weeks. At last 
when the verdict of all the scientific men who 
looked upon my darling was that she was dead, 


236 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

they set me aside. I was her betrothed lover 
but I was not her husband. I had no rights. 
Her parents had. 

“ Two months had gone, when one day I dis- 
covered that they were about to lay her in the 
ground. I said nothing but I formed my plans. 
I begged permission to watch alone beside her 
for one night. When day broke I had dis- 
appeared and taken my darling with me. The 
home in which the family lived was a villa on 
the Hudson. The grounds sloped to its bor- 
ders. I had a boat there ; I had made all prep- 
arations. There was a little dwelling scarcely 
more than a hut, on the summit of a mount. 
This I had bought some weeks before, knowing 
that the moment must come when I should need 
it. No one knew who I was, and indeed it was 
seldom that any one approached the place, save 
some boy more adventurous than his fellows. 

“ Here I placed my darling on softest pil- 
lows, living or dead as it might be. I did not 
know, I could only hope that this might be a 
longer trance than the others. Through scien- 
tific researches I had sought and discovered a 
highly condensed elixir of food, a chemical prep- 
aration so potent that a few trops of it, diluted 
with water, and placed in the mouth and being 
absorbed by the membranes would in cases like 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


237 


a trance be sufficient to repair all waste, and I 
thought to sustain life until the waking, be the 
time ever so long. I had not then proved the 
efficiency of this elixir for prolonged seasons. I 
was in terrible uncertainty as to the final re- 
sults. But in agony and in a wild frenzy of hope, 
I trusted to this potent agency to ward off the 
monster death, whose claws were now upon my 
darling trying to take her from me. The dread 
enemy should not have her. It could not be. 
I would use all the forces of the universe lest 
he claim her utterly. All day I watched her. 
I was absent only long enough to get the neces- 
saries of existence. The occupation of my life 
was to keep my oath, and to save her who was 
dearer to me than life itself. 

''Meanwhile they searched for me; they of- 
fered rewards for me, and at last the world de- 
cided that in my grief I had gone mad, and that 
I and my dead love had found rest together be- 
neath the waves of the great HmJson, and been 
swept seaward by the tide. I believe they found 
some relic of mortality which they thought 
ours. At last they rested. By that time I had 
been alone upon the mountain for ten years. 
During that time my aspect had utterly changed. 
At thirty I was tall and slender ; at forty I was 
large and broad of shoulder ; my hair had grown 


238 


SJIADOIVS BEFORE ; OR, 


white, my beard long as you see it now and 
snowy. But this time I also believed my little 
darling dead, but there was no need of burying 
her, and while I lived this should not be done. 
Now, however, I felt that it was useless to watch 
her face so constantly. In that lonely period I 
realized that I had, as we all have, a duty to 
perform toward my fellow men. But upon the 
mountains I devoted myself to the study of 
philosophy, the sciences, and the great problems 
of universal happiness. The stars were my 
friends ; an astronomer is never lonely. I 
learned much. I made some discoveries. In 
order that I might never forget one word that 
Grace had said to me, or a happy moment which 
we had spent together, I cultivated a system of 
memory, which later I gave to the world. Finally 
I returned to dwell with my fellow men. In 
order to avoid the notoriety of the old story, I 
changed my name. It was really Frank Ather- 
ton. Busbey, as you know, is the name I as- 
sumed. I attached that name to the works I 
issued and which became popular. Meanwhile 
the remains of my betrothed were secretly con- 
veyed to the city. In a dwelling which I pos- 
sessed they continued to lie upon a couch, 
changeless as of old. I saw that the elixir was 
given her with unfailing regularity. I took one 


A CENTURY O NIVA RE. 


239 


into my confidence, a crippled old woman glad 
to earn her bread so easily, and she watched 
continually for any sign of waking. There was 
none. Ten years passed by: the watcher slept 
her last sleep ; another took her place. I was 
now fifty years old. At that time I met a lonely 
woman who became dear to me and needed me. 
I married her and we had one son ; Isis and 
lolas are his grandchildren. It is not well for 
man to live alone, and my anguish had been 
calmed by time. Yet still my dear love’s body 
lay as beautiful as ever where I had placed it, 
her body, I believed it now, and nothing more. 
Yet my watchful care was not relaxed, only I 
employed others to aid me in it, and the potent 
elixir was never forgotten. 

“ On the night of your arrival, the night of 
my birthday when I was just one hundred and 
thirty years of age ; when my last guest had 
gone and I was about to seek my pillow, a man 
came to my door. The signal that I never ex- 
pected to receive was given me — a card on which 
I myself had written 'at last.’ 

" It was yellow with time ; the watchers of a 
hundred years had left it untouched ; but this 
man I now employed, a Hindoo, Kala’s father, 
— who kept my secret as he would one of which 
the betrayal would cost his own life — had found 


240 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


upon the mirror, always suspended over the 
lips of her he watched, a little blur, the merest 
blot upon the polished surface. But it was 
enough. 

“ I need not tell you that I flew to the spot 
at once. I had at hand the appliances for re- 
storing animation, which a century has given us. 

“In an hour the senseless form became ani- 
mated. The immobile face was stirred by vary- 
ing expressions ; the eyes opened and rested on 
my face. In a few moments more Grace Mal- 
com, as she was at the moment when I bestowed 
upon her cheek that fatal kiss, lifted herself on 
her elbow. Startled, terrified, she looked about 
her. 

‘“I do not know this place,’ she said. 

“ ‘ It is a place of safety,’ I answered. 

“ ‘ I do not know you,’ she continued. 

“ ‘ Look at me again,’ I said. 

“ ‘ No, I never saw you,’ she replied, ‘ never.’ 

“ ‘ Think again,’ I said. 

“ ‘ My grandfather died long ago,’ she said. 
‘ Besides, he was not so old and white-haired. 
No, I do not know you.’ 

“ ‘ My friend, can you imagine what I suf- 
fered ? ” The professor paused. Taira Mina- 
moto took his hand and pressed it to his own 
forehead. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


241 


“ I could not speak for awhile,” the professor 
continues, “but I strove with myself, realized the 
truth, and submitted to the inevitable at last. 
I once more approached the couch. Grace was 
still more awake to her surroundings by this 
time. 

“ ‘ I have had another of my trances,’ she 
said. ‘ How absurd of me. I remember some- 
thing startled me and I fainted.’ 

“ ‘ Is that the last thing you remember ? ’ I 
asked. 

“ ‘ No,’ she said gently, ‘ I told Frank not to 
let them bury me alive, I have always felt afraid 
of that.’ 

“ ‘ Frank kept his promise,’ I said. 

“ ‘ Dear Frank,’ she answered, ‘but where am 
I ? Are you a doctor ? I am alone with two men. 
That is singular.’ 

“ ‘ With friends, Grace,’ I said. 

“ ‘Yes, you are so venerable that I feel safe ; 
but this is not my home.’ 

“ ‘ It is a place where you have been lying 
during a long trance,’ I said. 

“‘A hospital, I suppose,’ she said. ‘No 
doubt you have done much for me, you look so 
good, and the dark servant there so patient. 
But now take me home to mamma. I know it 
must be Frank who placed me here, that the 


242 


SffA DOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


doctors might not call me dead as they did be- 
fore, but now take me home and send for 
Frank.’ I made no answer. I had realized 
that as Grace had been dead to me a hundred 
years, I was now dead to her for ever. She 
would never discover me in the white-haired 
Professor Busbey. I had taken pains to lose 
my identity before the world ; it would now 
avail me to keep my secret. I had secured a 
costume such as ladies of the period wore, when 
I conveyed Grace to the home upon the moun- 
tain. Ever since it had remained folded away 
amid perfumes and powders, as fresh and dainty 
as on the day of its purchase. When her 
strength had sufficiently returned, we left her 
to attire herself. The exertion was too much. 
She fainted when she had performed it, though 
I was convinced that this swoon was a natural 
one. It was best to remove her to my home 
while she was insensible and let her at least find 
women beside her when she again recovered. 
I called the flying ambulance and we were soon 
at my own door. 

“ Once again she had almost slipped away 
from me, but I knew more than they did, in 
those past days. Once more I restored her to 
consciousness, left to Isis the task of breaking 
the truth to her, and have done what I could to 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


243 


make her life happy since that moment. To 
this effort I shall now devote my days, and 
never while I live, or after, shall her days be 
darkened by the knowledge that I am the lover 
of her youth — Frank Atherton.” 

He pauses. Taira Minamoto bends his head 
once more. 

“Wisest of living men,” he says, “permit a 
humble student to utter a word which it seems 
to him he should speak. 

“ The maiden is fair, but the honor and glory 
of her days would be to be chosen by one so 
wise, so venerable. Tell her the truth and it 
will fill her soul with joy. How can you doubt 
it, you who are so wise in all else ?” 

The old professor smiles benignly down 
upon the bright-eyed exile of the Orient. 

“My son,” he says, “know this. All the 
wisdom, all the honor, all the wealth a man can 
attain cannot restore to him the exquisite and 
fleeting gift of youth. Oh, to be once more 
young at the last, if only for an hour! Yes, for 
an hour and then die, kissing the lips of my be- 
loved one.” 

He turns away, with his head bent upon his 
bossom. Taira stands in silence until he is 
alone and writes in one of his books these 
words : 


244 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


“ Nearly all else changes, the customs and 
manners, the government of countries, the re- 
ligions of men and their philosophy, but the 
heart of men alters not, nor does it grow old, 
though it beats on within a withered frame for 
a century.” 

And now because of this strange awakening 
of the sleeping beauty from her century’s slum- 
ber, sorrow has fallen upon all these hearts that 
were so light upon the eve of the professor’s 
birthday. 

Isis is sad. Electra is angry. Spencer Grey 
stands aloof from his young friends. 

lolas, as he thinks of the promise he has 
given his grandfather, feels that the sacrifice 
would be far more terrible than that of his life. 
He is doing what he can to know Grace Mal- 
com better, but though her delicate form, pite- 
ous eyes, and changing helplessness make him 
pity her, he is farther and farther from any feel- 
ing of love for her, whereas Electra at her 
naughtiest, independent to a provoking degree, 
and evidently quite as mueh disposed to favor 
Spencer Grey as himself, is ever charming, 
tantalizing beyond compare with other women 
in his mind. 

He leans over the side of the Flying Queen 
as she floats through the air, dropping slowly 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


245 


toward a great city of the West, and says to 
himself that one plunge would end it all, — and 
is half inclined to take it. 

Suddenly he feels a delicate touch upon his 
shoulder, and, turning, finds Taira Minamoto 
beside him. 

“Son of the wise;st and oldest of men,” says 
Taira, “ you are sad.” 

“Yes, I am sad, Taira,” says lolas, “and that 
wisest and greatest of men is the cause.” 

“ It is often so in Japan,” says Taira. “ Very 
often there are old heads everywhere and young 
hearts as well. What seems good to one, does 
not seem good to the other.” 

“ Do you know, Taira,” says lolas, “ that you 
are the best fellow in the world? I cannot talk 
to Spencer or to Darwin as I can to you.” 

“ I thank you for your good opinion,” says 
Taira. “ Now may I speak my heart? I came 
here to acquire the knowledge which the wisest 
of men can impart. I have learned much, 
much. It is all recorded ; it will all be reported. 
I can tell people of your government and of 
your laws, of your ideas of marriage, and of 
your financial regulations, of the result of your 
researches into all the arts and sciences, and I 
shall receive honors and emoluments on my re- 
turn. But my soul is troubled. When I came 


246 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


to you, you were all happy, now you are all in 
sorrow. I can see that the sorrow came when 
the lady of the past entered your doors. Your 
sister weeps, you sigh. The other ladies and 
gentlemen glance at each other as the gods did 
when they contemplated vengence. Does the 
beautiful, strange lady cause all this?” 

“The girl they call Grace Malcom does,” 
says lolas. “ Taira, it will do me no good to 
confide in you. My sister, myself, and some 
friends do not believe, as our grandfather does, 
in this strange story. He will not give us the 
particulars of his discovery of the girl, and we 
fear he has been deceived, — this is our first 
trouble.” 

“ A natural one ” says Taira Minamoto, “ but 
listen to me. I swear by the ghosts of my an- 
cestors that I know that she is not deceiving 
you ; that she lived in all her sweetness and 
beauty a century ago ; that she seemed to die, 
and has laid as one dead ever since ; that now 
she has bloomed again with beauty undimin- 
ished as does the century plant when the time 
arrives. This, I know." 

“ How?” asks lolas. 

“Pardon, I know," Minamoto; “I swear 
to you I know.” 

“ But even if this be so,” says lolas, “what a 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


247 


strange fate to be bound for life to so mysteri- 
ous a person ! My grandfather wishes me to 
take Grace Malcom for my wife ; he asked of 
me that I should do so for her sake. I promised, 
and I am miserable, for I love another woman 
and to her I am cold as ice, or as she is to me. 
It is curious, Taira, how much these women are 
to us.’' 

'‘Son of the wisest,” says Taira, "I have 
thought of this matter. I believe that you will 
not be called upon to make the sacrifice. Be 
brave. What I can do for you, I will.” 

“ But do you not see it is a sacrifice my grand- 
father asks of me. Shall he ask anything and 
I refuse ? It would be monstrous. Even to this 
point I will go, if life does not become too un- 
endurable. If I do not die in the struggle ; 
Electra will not be affected ; she likes Spencer 
Grey better than she does me.” 

" And he likes the century flower,” says Taira, 
"What if the wisest would bestow her upon 
him ? He would protect her, he would hold her 
dear, and he also is young and handsome.” 

"Yes, he is young and handsome,” says lolas. 
" Oh, Taira, if my grandfather would but change 
his mind so far, how happy I should be ! Elec- 
tra believes Grace to be an imposter, spreading 
nets for my grandfather ; I am glad you have 


248 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


told me you know she is not that. She seems 
to me to be very cold, however.” 

“ Perhaps she has deep feelings which she 
conceals,” says Taira. “ Her eyes are the eyes 
of one who does not forget. But be at peace ; 
let your heart rest ; all will be well.” 

" At all events your sympathy comforts me, 
Taira,” says Tolas. “ I can talk to you as I can- 
not to the other Americans.” 

For hours they stood there ; it was Tolas who 
spoke, Taira who listened ; but when they parted 
the Japanese understood the heart of the lover 
of this new western land. 

“ They are like their mighty pines and oaks,” 
he writes, “ these Americans, but when love 
comes to them they grow weak ; their women 
suit them. It is better to my mind that women 
should take a more lowly place as they do in 
the Orient, but here a man dies for love of a 
girl, and her smile is more than fame, or gold, 
or jewels.” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


249 


CHAPTER XV.. 

Does time fly faster in the air than it does on 
earth ? They have only been floating above the 
world a few days and yet Isis seems to have 
thought so much and felt so much. None of 
them takes any note of passing hours. They 
seldom look at their watches. This night they 
have supped and enjoyed the wonderful splendor 
of the sunset from their new point of observa- 
tion, when the professor begins his talk. 

'' I have so many questions to ask that you 
will by and by regard me as a human interroga- 
tion point,’' says Grace, smilingly address- 
ing the group on the deck of the Flying 
Queen. I want to know what has become of 
all the State socialistic, nationalistic, and an- 
archical ideas once so prevalent. I also wish to 
know what became of the strikes with their at- 
tendant destruction of life and property. Dread- 
ful murders were also committed by the strik- 
ers, often without adequate and prompt govern- 
mental repression of lawlessness and violence. 

''These were phases,” answers lolas, "in the 


250 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


natural growth and development of our institu- 
tions, which at one time caused grave misgiv- 
ings to many thoughtful minds concerning the 
possibility, stability, of republican institutions, 
institutions founded upon justice, equal free- 
dom, and equal rights. The better education 
of the people in the laws of sociology, political 
economy, and finance, in government, in the 
administration of justice, and in the principles 
of ethics, together with their more equal men- 
tal, moral, and physical development has cured 
most of the ills you speak of. A powerful 
modern feature in the higher education of the 
people, and in their moral, political, and practi- 
cal guidance, is the endowed Free Press of 
Chicago. It is a great independent daily paper 
with an endowment of twenty millions of 
dollars, unconditioned by party politics or 
theological reservations. 

“ It is a bright beacon light, showing the way 
midst the storm and heat of party strifes ; a safe 
guide from the shoals and breakers of prejudice, 
ignorance, and crafty interest ; a leader of the 
people toward a higher civilization. It is found 
in the clubs, reading-rooms, and librarie^s 
throughout the land. The paper was founded 
and handsomely endowed about a century back, 
by the Furbers, Armours, and Fields, of 


/ 

A CENTURY ONWARD. 251 

Chicago, familar names of its great philanthro- 
pists. The original endowments were rapidly 
increased by gifts and bequests from all sections 
of the country, coming from men convinced of 
the great importance of the work. 

It takes no advertisements and its subscrip- 
tion price is not higher than that of other dailies. 
It employs on its staff a corps of the ablest 
scientists and philosophers of the age, gathered 
from all parts of the civilized world, combining 
the wisdom of all the branches of sciences, men 
unhampered by errors, prejudices, or by the re- 
strictions of party, or moneyed interests, men 
who follow the truth wherever it may lead. 

'' Questions of political economy, of finance, 
of ethics, and sociology, and of national and 
political interest, and the varied important ques- 
tions of the times are treated from the broadest 
standpoints of scientific truths and fundamental 
principles, on which the interests and happiness 
of humanity are founded. 

'‘When men receive a full, and well-rounded 
education, coupled with a good, well-balanced 
mental and physical development, they know 
the great underlying principle of all happiness, 
the formula of equal freedom, ‘ man is free to 
do that which he will, provided he infringe not 
upon the like liberty of all,' conditioned by the 


252 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

formula of right, does iiot mean anarchism, nor 
nationalism, nor compulsory or State socialism, 
but that it means personal liberty, limited only 
by equal rights and the administration of jus- 
tice. Men now know that all great progress 
toward higher types of race development and 
greater human happiness must be made along 
the lines of this formula of equal freedom, con- 
ditioned by the formula of right, with prompt 
administration of justice.” 

“There was a great strike,” says Grace, “at 
a place called Homestead, in Pennsylvania, just 
before I went to sleep, and some dreadful mur- 
ders were committed by the workmen, and the 
militia had to be called out.” 

“Yes,” says lolas, “I remember reading of 
this in the history of the evolution of industries. 
The men had a right to organize and a right to 
strike. Capital had the same right to organize 
and to employ or not to employ whomsoever it 
would, and on the best terms it could make.” 

“ The mistake of the workmen,” says Spencer 
Grey, “ was, as one of the great dailies ex- 
pressed it, not in refusing to accept the terms of- 
fered by the company. It was not in striking 
in a body and leaving the mills, at a great daily 
loss to the owners. It was in assuming to con- 
trol property in which they did not own a dollar. 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


253 


It was in usurping the right of the legal owners 
to the possession, use, and the protection of 
their own property. It was in refusing to recog- 
nize the right of other workmen to labor for 
such compensation as they saw fit. If capital 
were to assume a corresponding right over labor 
it would be condemned in every court of justice. 
Imagine for a moment, that an organization of 
capital should employ the methods of labor or- 
ganizations, and, having refused to employ a 
man, or body of men, except on terms of its 
own making, should employ force to prevent 
their accepting, or to prevent any other organi- 
zation giving them, employment on any other 
terms. The company had a legal right to pro- 
tect its own property ; it had a legal right to 
employ as many men for that purpose as it saw 
fit ; it had a legal right to arm these men. 
Many banks and places of business are guarded 
by armed watchmen. The law could not re- 
quire the company to employ as watchmen men 
from whom it anticipated the destruction of its 
property.’’ 

The professor has just entered, and joining 
in the conversation, says : '' Labor has a right 
to demand such terms as it pleases for its serv- 
ices and the right to refuse work on any other 
terms, but it has no right to prevent other 


2 54 SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 

workmen from working for such terms as they 
may also see fit. Capital also has a right to ac- 
cept or to refuse one or all of these terms, to 
offer terms of its own, and to employ or not to 
employ whomsoever and whenever it sees fit, 
and upon such terms as it may agree, and no 
right to forbid other organizations from doing 
the same. It is a fundamental principle that 
the employe has a right to the full control of his 
own labor, and it is also a fundamental principle 
that capital has a right to the full control of its 
own property.” 

“ These must be maintained as fundamental 
principles by all the force of the land,” says 
lolas. 

“Workmen,” says the professor, “may right- 
fully be persuaded by employers to work, or by 
strikers to refrain from work. Capital may em- 
ploy or refrain from employing, but neither can 
be legally intimidated or coerced by the other 
party. The right of labor to organize for its 
own defense and to employ just and equitable 
means is beyond dispute. Its right to form 
unions for the peaceful and legitimate protec- 
tion of its own interests cannot be questioned. 
Under many circumstances and within just limi- 
tations, this association is not only legitimate, 
but judicious and commendable. There is also 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


255 


no valid reason why employers should not come 
together, under the same conditions, in organi- 
zations for their mutual benefit and for the ad- 
vancement of their common welfare, the same 
as there is no valid reason why workmen should 
not combine for similar purposes. Within their 
proper sphere both labor unions and unions of 
capital have accomplished much good. They 
have given workmen and capital the strength 
and advantage of association ; they have lent to 
the weak the support of the strong ; they have 
aided in maintaining a liberal scale of wages; in 
many cases they have exercised a wholesome 
influence upon the character of labor. When 
they are governed by reason and good judg- 
ment, when they accord the same respect to the 
rights of others that they claim is due to their 
own, they are salutary and beneficial. As one 
of our old writers expresses it: ‘There is neither 
difference nor distinction between the rights of 
the employer and the employed.’ The laborer 
of to-day may be the employer of to-morrow, 
but his rights do not change on that account. 
He is the same individual with exactly the same 
rights under the law as before. The man using 
millions of dollars in the employment of thou- 
sands of persons has exactly the same rights as 
the poorest employe on his pay-roll. P'or a 


256 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


time we heard much about the rights of capital. 
Capita,! has no rights, save the rights which 
every form of property has under the law. The 
dollar in the laborer’s pocket is equally under 
the protection of the law with the millions in 
the safe deposit company’s vaults. The right in 
the one dollar is exactly the same as the right 
in the millions. An employer has no rights as 
an employer distinct from his rights as a citizen, 
and the same is true of the employe.” 

“ My country has solved these problems on 
the same lines that you have laid down,” says 
Taira. 

“ What steps were taken in regard to arbitra- 
tion ? ” asks Grace. 

“Arbitration is good,” says the professor, “if 
both sides agree to it, otherwise it is not prac- 
ticable. Compulsory arbitration is impossible. 
It would be unjust to both capital and labor. 
It would imply that workmen had a right to ia- 
sist upon employment, and that capital had a 
right to insist upon service. Employers must 
be free to employ labor on the best terms they 
can make, and when they will. Workmen must 
be free to work when and where they will, 
and where they can obtain the best rates. If 
employers have no right to refuse the services 
of workmen, then workmen have no right 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


257 


to leave the service of employers. If capi- 
tal is bound, labor must be bound by the same 
law, which means slavery for both. This would 
be the annihilation of industries. Labor must 
be free ; capital must be free ; co-operation 
must be free. We found that arbitration, other 
than advisory, could only be employed when 
voluntarily accepted by both parties. This was 
also the principle of international arbitration 
in affairs of State, before the International Con- 
federation.” 

''I understand,” says Taira. ''How about 
organizations which are not free and voluntary, 
like forced co-operation, or State socialism, 
which term means the same ? ” 

" They require an official organization with 
coercive authority to make the parts act to- 
gether, implying consequent submission and 
bondage equal in extent to the coercive power. 
The larger and more complex the organization, 
and the consequent requirements to be met, the 
more extensive, elaborate, and powerful must 
be the directing organization, and its more com- 
plete coercive power brings its consequent, more 
complete personal bondage. In our society the 
social organization is simple and limited in 
scope. As far as possible, it provides for na- 
tional defense, maintains public order, adminis- 


258 


SHADOWS BEFORE; OR, 


ters justice, and insures personal safety. In 
theory not at all, and in practice only in a limited 
degree, does it direct social or industrial life, or 
restrict just personal liberty. Our system of 
voluntary competitive co-operation, or free 
socialism and free contracts needs no official 
oversight for best regulating production and 
distribution. The laws of demand and supply 
working through ordinary business channels 
evolve the wonderful system by which this great 
city of New York is furnished with its vast and 
varied daily supplies for the satisfaction of its 
individual wants. Through this system it has 
clothing for its citizens to suit all tastes, and 
supplies furniture and fuel ready in each locality. 
Throughout the land production and distribu- 
tion are carried on, and the quantities of numer- 
ous commodities required daily in each locality 
are all regulated and apportioned without any 
other agency than free competitive co-operative 
business methods, which may be called free 
competitive socialism, following the laws of de- 
mand and supply.” 

“ This is not governmental nor compulsory co- 
operation or socialism,” says Grace. 

“No,” answers the professor, “compulsory 
socialism is contrary to the laws of nature con- 
cerning all progress towards a higher type of 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


259 


race and industrial development. This law 
demands that benefits received shall be in pro- 
portion to merits possessed, and that each indi- 
vidual shall receive benefits and injuries due to 
his own nature and consequent conduct, receiv- 
ing the good which his conduct brings, and 
must not be permitted to put upon others the 
ills brought about by his own actions. Follow- 
ing these laws tends to race ameliorations and 
increased happiness. The opposite course tends 
to industrial and race deterioration and increased 
misery.” 

“ This seems cruel,” says Grace. 

Pity, love, mercy, and charity,” answers the 
professor, '' are not abolished between individ- 
uals, but the nation should follow the course 
which tends to the highest evolution and con- 
sequent highest, happiness of the race. It fol- 
lows that if a man is to suffer the good and evil 
results of his own actions, he must be allowed 
to act, and the first formula of justice is ' Every 
man is free to do what he will, provided he in- 
fringe not on the equal freedom of any other 
man,’ conditioned by the formula of right.” 

'' This formula is the inverse of compulsory 
or State socialism,” says Taira. 

“ What would the regime of compulsory co- 
operation, or socialism, or nationalism neces- 


26 o , SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

sitate, as it was once advocated by Bellamy ? ” 
asks Grace. 

“ The system of compulsory co-operative 
socialism, or nationalism (which terms all mean 
the same), as advanced by Bellamy,” answers 
the professor, “ would require despotic organi- 
zations everywhere, controlling all kinds of 
production and distribution, and everywhere 
apportioning the shares of products of each 
kind required for each locality, each working 
establishment, and each individual. Free co- 
operation and individual liberty, acting spon- 
taneously, would be replaced by a vast official 
industrial organization of coercion, with obe- 
dience enforced by police and soldiers. A vast 
army would be required for the distribution of 
all commodities to all people in every city, 
town, and village, and for doing. all that farmers, 
manufacturers, and merchants now do, for work- 
ing mines, railroads, and canals ; foj importing 
and exporting ; for supplying towns with gas, 
water, and all their needs for postal, telegraph, 
and telephone service, and so on through all the 
activities of life. To this army of officials, add 
the army of police. This vast army of Bellamite 
officials, organized, grade above grade, ramified 
and consolidated, an official oligarchy, would 
use without stint whatever coercion their own 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


261 


interest, or the public interests, seemed to de- 
mand. They would impose their own rule over 
the entire lives of the workers, until their 
gigantic tyranny should have crushed out all 
semblance of liberty, and, ruling over a nation 
of slaves, would finally extinguish civilization 
itself.’' 

“ W ould all this be compulsory ? ” asks Grace. 

Yes.” 

'' And would men and women be forced to do 
as ordered?” 

Yes.” 

‘‘ What, if a man did not like to keep store, 
or dig ditches when ordered ? ” 

'' He 'must keep store or dig ditches all the 
same.” 

'' If a woman were ordered to wash and scrub, 
and preferred to do something else — what 
then?” 

'' She would be compelled to wash or scrub 
all the same.” 

'' Suppose the groceries or goods from the 
store were bad and you preferred to try some 
from elsewhere?” 

''You must take and use the bad groceries 
and goods. There would be no other stores,” 
says the professor. 

" Then men and women would be slaves to 


262 


SB ADOPTS BEFORE; OR, ' 


dig and scrub as ordered, and to be fed and 
clothed with but little choice in the matter.” 

“Yes, indeed they would,” says the professor, 
emphatically. “That is Bellamyism, or State 
socialism, or nationalism, or compulsory co-ope- 
ration, as you choose to call it.” 

“Are trusts and corporations beneficial?” 
asks Taira. 

“I remember,” says Grace, “that they were 
called monopolies.” 

“ Equitable and just trusts and corporations,” 
answers the professor, “ are free co-operative 
associations. As such they are industrial or- 
ganizations of a high order, and are beneficial. 
By uniting capital and various smaller enter- 
prises, they do away with surplus plants, sim- 
plify and render homogeneous the separate in- 
terests, diminish the number of men required to 
perform the duties, lessen expense, and cheapen 
production. If they formerly became monopo- 
lies, it was not the principle of trusts and cor- 
porations that was wrong, but rather a faulty 
administration of justice and unjust economic, 
and tariff regulations which suppressed the right 
of free competition, of free trade, and the free- 
dom of exchange. It was the tariff and unwise 
regulations which made it possible for them to 
become monopolies. The fallacy lay in attack- 


V 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 265 

ing the principles of trusts, which were just, in- 
stead of the tariff and economic regulations^ 
which were unjust and were the causes of the 
trouble.” 

Has the State tried the results of govern- 
ment ownership and management of railroads ? ” 
asks Taira. 

'' Private voluntary competitive co-operation,” 
answers the professor, “has proven infinitely 
superior, as a rule, to governmental manage- 
ment in all industrial enterprises, and notably in 
that of railroad management, where it proved 
to be very inefficient as compared with private 
corporate management. It was found that the 
Government could better subserve the public 
interests by fixing railway rates in conjunction 
with the railways, at a just scale, than it could 
by owning and operating the roads. In some 
cases it owns the road-beds, but it leases them 
to operating companies.” 

“I see,” says Grace, “that now even the 
laboring classes seem healthy and happy; I see 
but few with pinched faces or weary looks.” 

“ It has been the aim of the century,” says 
the professor, “ to improve the conditions and 
the happiness of all men, and, as far as possible, 
to remove the causes which created and con- 
tinued the classes of the miserably poor and dis- 


264 


SHADOWS BEFORE s OR, 


eased, and the disinherited. We recognized the 
fact that permanent improvement could only be 
made by prevention, by searching out and re- 
moving the causes of misery, disease, and crime, 
working along the lines of scientific truths, and 
in conformity with nature’s laws. 

“ One of the principal causes which led to the 
unequal distribution of wealth and to class suf- 
fering was the great mental and physical in- 
equality of individuals. Another was lack of 
proper sociological, scientific, and philosophical 
education. Another was the want of liberty 
and the bad administration of civil and criminal 
justice. Liberty, free justice, and approximate 
mental and physical equality, are requisite, fun- 
damental principles of all great universal and 
steady progress. 

“ We have sought to confer liberty and to en- 
force justice. 

“ Through the strict enforcement of improved 
contract marital laws, and insurance, and other 
improved sociological conditions, we have, to a 
large extent, eliminated moral, mental, and 
physical inferiority and incapacity. The crime, 
disease, and want, suffering and unhappiness, 
resulting from the old conditions have to an 
equal extent disappeared. Through a free 
scientific, philosophical, and technical education, 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 265 

we have given to all men facilities for a nearly 
equal preparation for life. Through equal liberty, 
personal responsibility, and a free, strict, and 
swift administration of justice, both civil and 
criminal, we give to all men protection, and 
guarantee to them equal freedom to exercise 
their faculties, and to put to profit in their own 
way, within the limits of right, their prepara- 
tions for life ; and we guarantee to each the 
enjoyment in peace of the fruits of his labors. 

“ The application of these principles has 
eliminated the general, wide, mental, moral, phy- 
sical, and material differences of other times. 
They have evolved a higher race type, and 
caused a consequent more equal distribution of 
wealth and happiness. Science has cheapened 
production, and shortened the hours of neces- 
sary labor, until life is made comparatively easy 
for all, and but few need lack either the neces- 
saries of existence or the requisites of hap- 
piness.’' 

'' Do the workers, men and women, now 
share in the profits of their occupations?” asks 
Grace. 

Yes, they do, as a rule,” answers the profes- 
sor; ‘'our industrial institutions are now mostly 
organized and managed on the profit-sharing 
plan, wherever it is practicable.” 


266 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


The canons of Colorado now lie below the 
Flying Queen. 

A century ago it was difficult to inspect these 
in all their beauty, but the air-ships have revo- 
lutionized scenic observation. 

When the air became navigable with more 
perfect certainty than the ocean, with fewer ac- 
cidents, with none of the misery of the sea (for 
an air voyage generally improves the health of 
those who enjoy it in every respect, immediately, 
and without the purgatorial probation known as 
the mal de mer by those who sailed the ocean ), 
Colorado began to be as frequently visited, by 
those from the Eastern States, as Long Branch 
and Cape May in our time. But to the young 
Japanese it is all utterly new and wonderful. In 
the whole world beside is nothing as astonishing 
as these canons, which can never alter, but will 
retain their strange and awe-inspiring grandeur 
while the world shall last. 

Hardly a word does Taira speak as they pass 
over the various canons, but his busy pencil jats 
down their titles : 

The Yampa Canon. 

'' The Red Canon. 

'' The Canon of Desolation. 

'' The Canon of Lodore. 

The Marble Canon. 


V 


A CENTURY ONWARD, 


267 


'' The Flaming Gorge. 

‘'The Whirlpool/’ etc., etc. 

At last the Flying Queen approaches Glen 
Canon. Its party is allowed to leave her for 
awhile and enter the mystic place, penetrating 
farther than would have been possible in 1893. 

Once within the canon they are very quiet 
and look up at the great natural buttresses that 
tower above them, and forget all else. 

As by natural selection, lolas offers his arm 
to Electra. Darwin takes the hand of Isis in 
his own. Grace clings to the professor’s arm. 
Behind these two Spencer stands silent, while 
Kala crouches low at the feet of Taira Mina- 
moto. 

Up above, the crew of the Flying Queen are 
singing together ; their voices sound far away. 
It seems to those below as though they listened 
to the inhabitants of the stars. 

" I am frightened,” whispers Kala. " Is not 
this a place where she of the magic sleep may 
change us all into creeping things ? I am 
frightened ! ” 

" Kala,” says Taira, " there is no harm in the 
girl who has slept, no magic, no mystery. A 
natural affliction that affects the human race 
befell her, that is all. Do you join her en- 
emies ? ” 


268 SHADOWS BEFORE s OR, 

“ Oh, no,” said Kala. “ It is only that I am 
afraid.” 

They speak in a tongue that no one else un- 
derstands. Taira seats himself upon a rock, 
and so brings himself nearer to the little Hindoo 
maid. 

“ My father watched her for years,” says 
Kala. “No one knew but the wise master, he 
and I, and we were silent. Miss Electra tells 
Miss Isis that she imposes on the master. It is 
not so. My father knows. She slept ; she had 
slept long before he began to watch her, long, 
long. Often the master came and sent my 
father away. Then it was the master who 
watched, sometimes for two nights and two 
days. Then he would weep and call upon her 
by name with words of love, but she never 
stirred until the night of the day ‘you came. 
Then a breath blurred the mirror and my father 
sent the token at last.” 

“I know, Kala,” says Taira. “The master 
told me all, but she is good, sweet, true ; it was 
not magic sleep, but an illness, as I have said. 
Listen, Kala, you can keep a secret ; you have 
half of this already. She was the master's love, 
his chosen from among women, and they would 
have crowned her with flowers and flung the 
rice before, but one day she seemed to die. 


A CENTURY ON WARE. 269 

Now in that day men buried their dead under 
the ground, but the master would not permit 
this. He fled, holding her in his arms, and 
since then he has watched her. He grew old; 
she remained young ; now she lives again. Is 
there any evil in that, any black magic ? ” 

'' I will believe anything you tell me, Taira 
Minamoto,” says Kala. ''But why does he not 
marry her now ? ” 

" He believes that the old cannot be beloved 
by the young,” says Taira. "He wishes to 
unite her to his son.” 

" But /le loves this Miss Electra,” says Kala. 

"Yes,” says Taira, "he loves the stately 
rose. The clinging vine does not charm him. 
But now you know there is no harm in the 
lovely lady, you will be kind to her.” 

" I am but a servant,” says Kala. 

"You are a woman,” says Taira. " See, the 
other women desert her.” Kala waves her head 
slowly up and down. 

"What Taira Minamoto commands, I will 
do,” she says. 

Meanwhile lolas sees the face of Electra take 
on a curious beauty, and draws closer to her ; 
and suddenly she says: 

" It is so strange here, so wonderful ! An 
awe creeps over me ; I feel timid ; I feel as 


2-JO 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


though I were become like the little impostor 
yonder. I am ashamed.” 

It seems to him that she clings to him a little. 
He has never felt her so dear. Her head in- 
clines toward his. Their cheeks lie together. 
His arm steals about her waist. 

“ I love you, Electra,” he says. 

“ And I love you,” she replies. 

They forget all else in the world, she her 
affectations, he his promised sacrifice, all but 
that they love each other. 

Meanwhile Isis and Darwin Hall have- with- 
drawn farther from the rest. 

“ Isis,” Darwin says, “whenever I have asked 
you if you could love me and be my wife, you 
have said that you would never leave your 
grandfather, but still I find the same question 
rising to my lips. Isis, will it always be ‘ no ’ ? ” 

“ My grandfather no longer coaxes,” says Isis. 
“ Some one else will be as a daughter to him. 
Grace is dearer than I, whether Electra is right 
or not. I have lost and she has gained him.” 

“ But there is a love that is stronger and 
always faithful,” says the young man. 

“ I doubted it,” says Isis, with a sigh ; “but 
I begin to understand.” 

“ I wish to take Minamoto farther up the 
caiion than the ladies would care to go,” the 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


271 


professor says to Spencer Grey ; “ will you stay 
here with Grace Malcom?” 

“ Gladly/’ replies Spencer, speaking from his 
heart. 

When they are alone she sits upon a rock, 
and he places himself beside her. 

“ All this is very new and strange to you, I 
suppose,” he says to her in a gentle tone. 

“Everything is strange,” she answers, “I 
wish I had died long ago. What can this world 
be, where people suspect me as though I were 
some wicked thing? Why is that woman so 
cruel to me — Electra? Even Isis is influenced 
by her. I know that lolas, good though he is, 
mistrusts me, and when I went to sleep I was so 
dear to many. I had parents, sisters, above all 
my betrothed husband — my Frank. Now, no 
one, no one but that dear old man, and one 
day they will persuade him that I am an im- 
postor,” and she covers her face with her hands. 
Spencer leans over her. 

“ Grace Malcom,” he says, “ you are mistaken. 
There is one other to whom you are dear, dear 
as life itself. From the moment I first saw you 
I felt that you were better, truer, sweeter than 
any of the women of this century. They have 
gained in many things, but they have lost the 
quality I seek for in a woman. They are too 


272 


SJIAnOWS BEFORE; OR, 


independent; they need no care, no tenderness, 
no support. Your every glance appeals to my 
heart. I did not know such a woman existed. I 
am not worthy of you, but if you will be my wife, 
I will try to make you happy.’' 

''Your wife ! ” Grace says, " Spencer Grey, 
you are sorry for me, and I thank you — I thank 
you from my heart; — but, I should never make 
you happy. I am happier for knowing that you 
do not think me an impostor ; that you sym- 
pathize with my sorrow ; that you would will- 
ingly sacrifice yourself for me. Yes, and that 
you feel tenderly, lovingly to me, but you would 
make yourself miserable if I were wicked enough 
to say yes.” 

" Grace, my happiness depends upon your 
saying yes,” Spencer whispers, drawing her to- 
wards him. " I feel that life contains nothing 
for me if you do not give me your heart.” 

She looks at him with sad and serious eyes. 

" I have no heart to give any one,” she says, 
"while it beats my heart belongs to Frank.” 

" To a man who has probably been dead for 
a century!” cries Spencer; "no darling, you 
delude yourself, you are morbid, and no won- 
der.” 

"To me it is only yesterday,” replies Grace, 
" Frank was my first love ; he will be my last. I 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


273 


had rather starve, beg, be in prison, anything, 
than marry one man while I love another/’ 

A century ! ” he repeats, '' a century ! There 
is no other woman living with such a heart ! But 
you may hold the memory of your lost love, 
dear Grace, there is no harm in that. I do not 
ask you to forget him. The love we feel for 
the dead is too pure and holy to arouse jealousy 
in loving hearts. Only marry me, Grace, and 
you will soon comprehend that you have done 
no harm to the man to whom you were once 
betrothed. You were not even his wife, remem- 
ber. Do not make me miserable for life, Grace.” 

'‘Oh, it cannot be that I shall do that!” 
Grace cries. “It adds another grief to those I 
have already, but it would be a crime, a wrong 
to you, though you may not feel it now ; a 
wrong to my own conscience. I do not love 
Frank as we love the dead, but as we love the 
living. Sometimes mad fancies come to me, 
wild hopes thrill me ; I believe that somewhere, 
he also sleeps and will awaken, that I shall meet 
him and that he will clasp me in his arms and 
all will be as if I had never slumbered. Could 
a wife who felt like that make a man happy ? ” 

“You would learn to love me, Grace,” Spen- 
cer says; “you would find in my heart repose 
and happiness. Your virgin soul cannot com- 


274 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


.prehend the bliss of wedded love. Yet you are 
one of the women who know how to love. Will 
you doom yourself to loneliness, you who were 
born to be caressed and beloved?” 

“ I cannot love any one but Frank,” she 
answers. 

“ Let the question of love go,” he says. Let 
me give you my name in order that I may have 
the right to cherish and protect you. The rest 
will come afterwards.” 

This time she answers, No,” in a tone that 
forbids him to say more. The professor and 
Taira Minamoto are seen. Spencer bows and 
steps aside. 

Grace feels a touch upon her hand and looks 
down. It is Kala, who has lifted her fingers to 
her forehead. She sits crouched at the lady’s 
feet, her dark eyes lifted to her face. 

“Love loves always,” she whispers, “and 
men may love many women, but to a woman 
there is only one man.” 

“ Dear Kala, I love you,” whispers Grace. 

“ My little one, you are pale,” says the pro- 
fessor, taking Grace upon his arm as they return 
to the air-ship, “ and there are tears in your eyes.” 

“It is all so strange!” she answers, “so 
strange and awful,” but she clings to his arm 
and her color returns, and soon she smiles again. 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


275 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Westward now as the bird flies, goes the air- 
ship. She stops at various places for water and 
provisions and to inspect various wonders of the 
continent of which Taira Minamoto knows 
nothing. 

The cities are more numerous than they were 
in the nineteenth centurv, of course. There 
are many which have started up like mushrooms 
and grown to important places in a few years. 
It was always the way with America. 

Art is better understood. The statues and 
monuments of great men are not the jest of 
Europe as they once were. 

America has an architecture of her own, too, 
which is unlike any other. It is based on beauti- 
ful ideas drawn from the primeval forests that 
still exist : from the wonderful formations of 
Nature at her grandest. 

A strange charm falls upon them. The air is 
softer, sweeter than before. The Pacific — fitly 
named — fills the air with benign breezes. 

They reach San Francisco, but a change has 


276 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

fallen upon the passengers of the Flying Queen. 
Isis is happy again ; Darwin Hall joyous ; lolas 
lives in a blissful dream ; Electra is content ; 
Spencer Grey, on the contrary, has become very 
gloomy. 

Electra and Jsis believe that the cause of this 
is their little quarrel concerning Grace Malcom. 
Isis feeling ashamed of her discourtesy to a 
guest, noting perhaps that he never approaches 
Grace, but sits aloof pretending to employ him- 
self with a book or pencil, makes overtures to 
him. 

In the end he comes to join their group, but 
he will say nothing ; he is not to be won to cor- 
diality, and in San Francisco he takes his leave 
of them. Taira Minamoto only knows why. 
Kala has told him. In the moonlight one night, 
after the professor has finished his little lecture, 
she sits at his feet. 

“ The beautiful lady who has slept has a true 
heart, Taira Minamoto,” she says, “ I listened 
and I heard Spencer Grey. He asked her to be 
his wife; he told her she should always be be- 
loved; he said what meant that she should have 
fine clothes and jewels, and a beautiful home 
and no care or trouble any more because he 
loved her. But she answered no, and no again, 
and still no, and then she told him that she would 




A CENTURY ONWARD. 277 

suffer anything rather than marry any one but 
Frank, whom she loved before she slept. And 
he told her that Frank was dead, but she an- 
swered that it was still so, and ever so, and al- 
ways so, all the same, and she would love only 
him until she died. That is why Spencer Grey 
is sad and has gone away. Is she not true — is 
it not beautiful — love like that?” 

“ Yes it is beautiful,” says Taira Minamoto. 

But you also could love like that, Kala.” 

She bows her head, and a dark flush sweeps 
over her brown cheek, and a star shines in each 
velvet eye. 

'' I am glad you told me this, Kala,” Taira 
says, '' I have been in doubt, I see my way clear 
now, perhaps I can make two happy, two who 
are now wretched. Perhaps I can pay my debt 
to the wisest and oldest of men, who has taught 
me so much. When I return to my country, 
laden like the honey bee with what I have 
gathered, I may say to myself : ‘Yet I have re- 
paid, for love is more than aught else to those 
of European race, and a woman’s love more 
than his sword ^to the soldier, or his pen to the 
writer, or his wisdom to the wise man.’ ” 

The Pdying Queen is bound to no line or 
course of travel in her aerial voyages. Neither 
mountains nor water-courses trouble her, neither 


278 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

deserts nor forests. As the bird flies she takes 
her path, and her speed is wonderful. She 
hovers over the glowing land of Florida, and 
descends, and her passengers alight and return 
to her with magnolias in their hands, and with 
oranges and figs fresh from the trees. 

She moves onward towards Chicago, the busi- 
est city in the world at this day, and the richest. 

The history of Chicago suggests something 
actually startling and seemingly unnatural in its 
rapid growth, its stupendous enterprise and its 
magnificent resources. It is in 1993 the great 
trade center of what was not only once known 
as the whole northwest, but of vast regions in 
all outlying directions. The professor’s party 
find in it life and motion and beauty everywhere. 
It is the home of leisure, of art, and of culture. 
Leagues upon leagues of stately palaces, of great 
boulevards, ceasing only to give place to vast 
parks, and then again recommencing, set Grace 
wild with exhultations of delight. 

On a sight-seeing morning when the group, 
approaches the grand old university, founded a 
century back, renowned in all lands, the students 
famous yell : 

'' Chi-ca-go ! Chi-ca-go ! Chi-ca-go ! 

Go it Chicago ! Go it Chicago ! 

Go it Chi-ca-go ! ” 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 279 

causes Grace to laugh heartily and say: How 
many things have changed ! How many of the 
old familiar sounds I miss ; but, 

‘ Chi-ca-go ! Chi-ca-go ! Chi-ca-go ! ’ 
falls upon my ears with the same glad, buoyant, 
hopeful tones that it did a century ago.” 

Waving her snowy handkerchief she joins the 
chorus and cries in her vibrant voice : “ Chicago, 
Chicago, Chicago ! ” 

The Flying Queen rests for a while in Chicago, 
where they flit about at will, and then resumes 
her course. And so from East to West, from 
North to South they fly. 

They could '' put a girdle round about the 
earth ” almost as swiftly as did Oberon’s mes- 
senger, if it were their desire to do so. At last 
they find themselves at Niagara. 

Nothing is changed in this stronghold of 
nature, except that the people of America have 
surrounded the Falls by the most beautiful park 
in existence, and that there are no longer any In- 
dian curiosities to buy. The prophecy of the 
disappearance of the waters so often uttered in the 
last century, has not been fulfilled. Wise ones 
declare that in their retreat, which is not posi- 
tive, the Falls have grown higher. 

As of yore the travelers view the Horseshoe, 
the Whirlpool, the Cave of the Winds, Luna 


28 o 


SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 


Island, but in pleasanter and safer ways than 
were possible in the nineteenth century. 

“ Occasionally, when I was young, people 
used to meet with accidents here,” says the pro- 
fessor. “ Now accidents occur so seldom any- 
where, that they may be said to be almost at an 
end. We have now but few great accidents 
with their slaughter of scores of passengers by 
the collisions of cars, or by the downfall of ill- 
built bridges and platforms, or by fires in pub- 
lic buildings. Here, matters are so arranged 
that we are perfectly safe, as we are at every 
place of public resort.” 

Meantime a new trouble clouds the pro- 
fessor’s ample brow, and he is a little stern 
with lolas. 

“ How long is it,” he says to him at last, 
“ that you will think it well to forget a promise 
as soon as it is made ? If you had said to me, 
‘ I refuse to do what you ask,’ I should have 
been better pleased.” 

lolas looks down. 

“ I couldn’t control my heart,” he answers, 
“In a moment of emotion I uttered words to 
Electra which I could not in honor withdraw, 
even if I could endure to cast away my happi- 
ness. She has promised to be my wife. Besides 
it would have been useless to woo Grace ; she 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 


281 


has no love for me. She loves the man to whom 
she was betrothed a hundred years ago." 

‘‘ Her memory of him," said the professor, 

is dear to her, but she is young and he " 

He paused. 

''You have grieved me, lolas," he says, "the 
girl is like a turtle-dove that has lost its mate, 
I would have given her one, and her happiness 
would have been restored." 

It is amidst the roar and rush of falling waters 
that they speak, and their words are inaudible 
to those at a little distance. But Taira Mina- 
moto watches them with his almond eyes, and 
says to himself : " It is time." 

With his soft, light step, he approaches Grace 
Malcom. 

She likes him and smiles a gentle welcome as 
he approaches. 

" Most sorrowful, may I speak to you as 
though I were an old friend?" he says. " I am 
not of your nation, I may mistake, but I am truly 
anxious for your happiness. Therefore, whatever 
I may say, grant me forgiveness beforehand." 

"I do," says Grace. "But I have no fear 
that you will need my pardon, Taira Minamoto." 

" I must speak of your sorrow," says Taira, 
"and of the long ago when you seemed to die. 
What do you last remember?" 


282 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

“Feeling myself grow faint, making Frank 
promise me that he would not let them bury me 
alive,” says Grace. “ I had been in that trance 
state twice, and they had nearly done so. Yes ; 
that is the last I remember. Frank Atherton, 
my betrothed husband, promised that he would 
guard me.” 

“ He kept his promise,” says Taira. “ He 
kept it well and faithfully. After all others 
believed you dead, he watched, he guarded 
you, he refused to let them lay you in the 
tomb.” 

“ He would be sure to do that,” says Grace. 
“ Dear Frank ! But how do you know?” 

“ I know, ” says Taira, mildly but positively, 
“I knozv. He watched and wept and hoped, 
this true lover, but in time he was one man 
against many. The wise physicians said. ‘ This 
girl is dead. He who says she is not is mad.’ 
The men of religion said : ‘ She is dead, yet no 
prayers have been uttered over her.’ The 
parents wept and said : ‘ Our child is dead, yet 
.she is not laid in the tomb.’ Yet he held his 
own against them until they grew too strong 
and would have prevailed but that he took you 
in his arms and fled, and hid you from all, and 
watched you still.” 

“ Oh, faithful ! ever faithful ! ” says Grace, 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 283 

'' But, Taira Minamoto, how did you learn all 
this? '' 

'' I know it,” says Taira, '' I know more.” 
Grace bends her head toward him, listening 
breathlessly. 

'' He fled to the mountains,” says Taira, ‘'and 
there was a hue and cry against him, but they 
never found him. The years passed and still 
he watched you. At last he returned to the 
haunts of men. No man knew him. He 
changed his name ; he grew wise ; the world 
applauded him, but still he never forgot. One 
watched always, so that if perchance you awoke 
at last, he might know ” 

“Who told you this?” gasps Grace. 

Again Taira, gentle and quiet, a soft light 
glowing in his eyes, responds : 

“ I know.” 

“Most men,” he begins, “live no longer than 
sixty, seventy, perhaps eighty years. This true 
lover passed that time. He was ninety ; he was 
a hundred ; his one hundred and thirtieth birth- 
*day arrived, and on that evening came the 
message he had waited a century for. At last 
— at last — the breath upon the mirror, at last 
the change that says ‘She lives. ’ ” 

Grace puts her hand upon his arm and looks 
into his eyes. 


284 SHADOWS BEFORE ; OR, 

'' He went to her,” says Taira. '' He took her 
in his arms and bore her to his dwelling. At 
first he thought to cry out : ‘ I am your lover, I 
have never ceased to love. Come to my arms.’ 
But soon he said : am old : she is young. She 

is fresh as a rose. To know that he whom she 
left young and handsome has grown so vener- 
able will pain her. She can revere me, but to 
love me is impossible. I will never tell her who 
I am, and I will find a youthful husband for her 
who will make her happy. And she knew noth- 
ing of all this, but she could love no other man. 
She vowed to wed no other, and so both sor- 
rowed.” 

He pauses and looks at her, and now she clasps 
his hands in both her own. 

“Speak!” she cries, “I dare not trust my 
hopes ! ” 

“ Yonder stands the man you loved,’ oh truest 
heart of woman!” says Taira. “While you 
slumbered and kept your youth, he awakened 
and grew old. And I know, because he told me 
with his own wise lips, and since then I have* 
said: ‘When she knows they will both be 
happy.’ ” 

He is coming toward them, this white-haired 
man with the splendid eyes. He stands firm and 
erect as an oak. She stretches out her arms 


A CENTURY ONWARD. 285 

toward him. He pauses and looks at her, and 
she utters a great cry. 

Frank ! My Frank ! ” she cries. '' Oh ! cruel 
Frank, to hide yourself from me. Oh Frank, be- 
lieve that I knew you all along.’' 

She lies folded in his arms, and Taira goes to 
tell the others what he knows. 

For a long while the two remain alone to- 
gether, and when his grandchildren come to 
him, he lays a hand upon the head of each and 
blesses them. And so they return to the Flying 
Queen, all strangely happy. 

And it is when the moon rises and all the 
stars are out and they float between heaven and 
earth that Taira Minamoto stands before the 
patriarch, holding Kala by the hand. 

'' When I go back to my country I shall take 
Kala with me,” he says. '‘Oh, give me your 
blessing, for we love each other, as you, wisest 
of men, love the century flower, as these others 
love each other, and she is to be my wife.” 

Not long afterward four weddings are cele- 
brated on the same day. We need not say that 
Grace is the first bride, Isis the second, Electra 
the third, and soft-voiced Kala the fourth. For 
a while they sail about the world in the Plying 
Queen, and Taira listens to the professor’s words 
of wisdom and grows fonder of them all. 


286 


SHADOWS BEFORE. 


At last he leaves them, and they part with 
tears. He takes his bride back to Japan, where 
she is spoken of as the American wife of Taira 
Minamoto, and a rumor goes abroad that she 
was a great lady in her own land. 

Twenty years after there comes to Taira a 
letter. It is written by lolas. 

“ Dear friend,” it says, “ to-day our dear 
grandfather passed away at the age of one 
hundred and fifty. His power of mind did not 
decay, but of late his body grew feeble. 

“His marriage was a happy one. His wife 
adored him. Peace crowned his late hours. At 
last he sat him down one day and drew her to 
him. Her head dropped upon his bosom. His 
arm encircled her. After a while he seemed to 
sleep, and we thought that she also slumbered, 
but when we spoke to them, both were dead. 

“As they desired, their ashes are mingled in 
one urn, and in death they are not divided.” 




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